Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Vice President (VP) of Growth Marketing

🎯 Role Definition

The Vice President (VP) of Growth Marketing is a senior executive leader who serves as the primary architect of the company's scalable growth engine. This role is fundamentally data-driven, blending strategic marketing, ruthless experimentation, and cross-functional leadership to drive measurable and sustainable increases in customer acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue. More than just a traditional marketer, the VP of Growth is a commercial-minded strategist who owns the entire customer funnel, constantly seeking out innovative levers to accelerate business expansion. They are accountable for performance metrics and are expected to build, mentor, and lead a high-performing, multi-disciplinary marketing team.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Director of Growth Marketing or Head of Growth
Director of Demand Generation or Performance Marketing
Senior Director of Marketing in a high-growth environment

Advancement To:

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
Chief Growth Officer (CGO)
Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or other C-level commercial roles

Lateral Moves:

VP of Marketing (with a broader brand/comms focus)
VP of Product Marketing or General Manager of a business unit

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Architect and execute a comprehensive, multi-channel growth marketing strategy that aligns directly with the company's revenue targets and long-term business objectives.
Own the entire marketing funnel from awareness and acquisition through to activation, retention, and referral, developing programs to optimize each stage.
Develop, manage, and be fully accountable for the multi-million dollar growth marketing budget, ensuring efficient allocation of resources for maximum return on investment (ROI) and minimum Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
Lead, mentor, and scale a world-class growth marketing team, fostering a culture of high-performance, accountability, and continuous experimentation.
Define and oversee the company's demand generation and customer acquisition strategy, utilizing a mix of paid search, paid social, SEO, content marketing, affiliates, and partnership channels.
Champion a data-first culture by establishing a robust analytics and reporting framework to track key performance indicators (KPIs) like LTV:CAC, payback period, MQLs, SQLs, and pipeline velocity.
Oversee the entire marketing technology (MarTech) and data stack, ensuring the right tools and systems (e.g., CRM, marketing automation, analytics platforms) are in place to enable scalable growth.
Spearhead the organization's SEO and content strategy to build organic traffic, improve search engine rankings, and establish the company as a thought leader in its category.
Direct all lifecycle marketing initiatives, including email marketing, in-app messaging, and customer journey optimization, to increase user engagement, reduce churn, and drive expansion revenue.
Master and refine the lead scoring and lead management processes in close collaboration with the Sales and Business Development teams to ensure a seamless MQL-to-close funnel.
Develop and manage a rapid, high-tempo experimentation framework (A/B testing, multivariate testing) across landing pages, ad copy, creative, and user flows to consistently improve conversion rates.
Present clear, concise performance reports, strategic insights, and forward-looking plans to the executive leadership team and the Board of Directors.
Collaborate deeply with Product and Engineering teams to identify and implement growth loops and product-led growth (PLG) opportunities within the user experience.
Guide the strategy for top-of-funnel brand awareness campaigns that are directly tied to measurable performance and audience growth goals.
Conduct in-depth market, competitor, and customer research to identify new growth opportunities, un-met customer needs, and emerging market trends.
Build and maintain strong relationships with key strategic partners, agencies, and vendors to extend the team’s capabilities and amplify marketing efforts.
Refine and optimize customer segmentation and targeting strategies to deliver more personalized and effective marketing campaigns.
Oversee the company's international expansion marketing efforts, tailoring growth strategies to new and diverse geographic markets.
Set ambitious team and individual goals (OKRs/KPIs), regularly track progress against them, and provide consistent feedback and coaching to direct reports.
Act as the primary stakeholder for the company's website performance, focusing on conversion rate optimization (CRO), user experience, and technical SEO.
Drive the strategy for ABM (Account-Based Marketing) campaigns in partnership with sales to target and convert high-value enterprise accounts.

Secondary Functions

Serve as a key spokesperson and internal evangelist for growth marketing principles, educating the wider organization on data-driven methodologies.
Contribute to corporate strategy discussions, providing a data-backed marketing perspective on pricing models, new product launches, and market entry plans.
Mentor rising talent and high-potential individuals across the broader commercial organization, not just within the direct marketing team.
Foster a strong and collaborative relationship with the Finance department to ensure accurate forecasting, budget tracking, and LTV modeling.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Marketing Analytics & Attribution: Deep expertise in multi-touch attribution models, cohort analysis, and funnel analytics using platforms like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Amplitude.
Performance Marketing: Mastery of managing large-scale paid acquisition campaigns on platforms such as Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, etc., with a focus on CPA and ROAS.
Marketing Automation & CRM: Advanced proficiency with enterprise-level platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot, and deep integration knowledge with CRMs like Salesforce.
SEO & Content Strategy: Strong command of technical SEO, keyword strategy, link-building, and content marketing principles for organic growth.
A/B Testing & CRO: Hands-on experience with conversion rate optimization methodologies and tools such as Optimizely, VWO, or Google Optimize.
Data Analysis & Visualization: Ability to query data using SQL and build compelling dashboards in tools like Tableau, Looker, or Power BI to translate complex data into actionable insights.
Financial Modeling: Strong business acumen with the ability to build and manage complex marketing budgets, forecast performance, and model key metrics like CAC and LTV.

Soft Skills

Strategic & Analytical Thinking: A proven ability to think big picture, translate business goals into a marketing strategy, and dive deep into data to uncover opportunities and solve complex problems.
Inspirational Leadership: The capacity to build, mentor, and motivate a high-performing, diverse team, setting a clear vision and fostering a positive, results-oriented culture.
Exceptional Communicator: The ability to articulate a complex strategy, data-driven insights, and performance results clearly and persuasively to C-level executives, board members, and the broader team.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: A natural ability to build strong, collaborative relationships with counterparts in Sales, Product, Engineering, and Finance to achieve shared goals.
Results-Driven & Accountable: A relentless focus on delivering measurable results and a strong sense of ownership and accountability for performance against key business metrics.
Adaptability & Resilience: Thrives in a fast-paced, high-growth environment and is able to pivot strategies quickly in response to market changes or performance data.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred Education:

Master of Business Administration (MBA) or a Master's degree in a quantitative field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Marketing or Business Administration
Economics, Statistics, or Computer Science

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 10-15+ years of progressive experience in marketing, with at least 5-7 years in a leadership capacity focused specifically on growth, demand generation, or performance marketing.

Preferred: Deep experience leading the growth function within a high-growth B2B SaaS, tech, or D2C company with a proven, demonstrable track record of scaling customer acquisition and revenue. Experience reporting directly to a C-level executive is highly desirable.