Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Category-Defining Brand Builder | Industrial Growth Leader | AI‑Enabled Marketing

Location: Cape Town South Africa 

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is responsible for building a category-defining industrial brand and a scalable commercial growth engine that drives market penetration, customer engagement, pipeline development, and revenue growth.

This is not a traditional corporate marketing role. The company is seeking a builder, not a caretaker - a leader with a proven track record of creating, scaling, and leading brands that define and dominate their categories, not simply managing established brand systems.

The CMO will lead market development across targeted vocational industries through direct engagement with fleets, operators, owners, procurement teams, and broader buying groups, ensuring the brand is grounded in real customer environments and decision dynamics.

This role requires deep expertise across:

• Brand creation and category leadership
• Industrial and vocational market positioning
• Direct-to-customer and field-driven marketing
• Demand generation and revenue growth
• Community, influencer, and ecosystem-led engagement
• Digital and social brand development
• AI-enabled marketing strategy and operations

The objective is to build a brand that customers trust, operators identify with, and the industry recognizes as a clear market leader.

Core Responsibilities

1. Brand Building & Category Leadership

• Build and scale a differentiated, category-leading industrial brand
• Establish the company as a recognized market leader within targeted vocational industries
• Develop positioning that combines emotional relevance with commercial clarity
• Create clear, compelling narratives that resonate with fleets, operators, and industrial buying groups
• Drive long-term brand equity, loyalty, and industry influence
• Ensure consistent brand expression across all customer and employee touchpoints

2. Marketing & Growth Strategy

• Own the company’s end-to-end marketing and growth strategy
• Define go-to-market strategies by industry, segment, and application
• Align marketing strategy tightly with commercial growth priorities and revenue objectives
• Translate market insight into scalable, measurable growth programs
• Ensure integration across brand, demand generation, customer lifecycle, and channel strategy

3. Demand Generation & Commercial Impact

• Accountable for marketing’s measurable contribution to qualified pipeline, revenue growth, and demand funnel efficiency
• Lead the development of measurable demand generation systems, including:
  • Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
  • Lifecycle marketing
  • Digital acquisition and optimization
  • Field and event-driven demand
  • Customer advocacy and referral programs
• Improve lead quality, conversion rates, CAC efficiency, and lifetime value
• Partner closely with Sales, Service, Product, and Commercial leadership to ensure full funnel alignment

4. Vocational Market Engagement & Customer Proximity

• Leads market development through direct engagement with core vocational stakeholders, including fleet owners, operators, maintenance leaders, and procurement teams
• Ensure the brand is visible, credible, and active within real operating environments
• Strengthening customer loyalty, advocacy, and long-term account penetration
• Develop deep connections within vocational and industrial ecosystems

5. Grassroots, Influencer & Community-Led Growth

• Develop high-impact grassroots and field-driven marketing programs
• Leverage influencers, operators, and customer advocates to amplify brand credibility
• Define channel strategy and ensure execution across channel platforms such as LinkedIn, YouTube, trade media, and relevant industry platforms
• Build authentic, operator-focused storytelling that resonates beyond traditional marketing channels
• Create marketing that earns attention, trust, and engagement, not just impressions

6. AI-Enabled Marketing Operating Model

• Lead the adoption of AI across marketing strategy, execution, and decision-making
• Embed AI into:
  • Content development and scaling
  • Campaign optimization and targeting
  • Customer insight generation
  • Marketing automation and workflow efficiency
• Demonstrate measurable gains in speed, scalability, and productivity through AI in marketing operations environment
• Establish governance ensuring AI enhances, not replaces, human judgment and brand integrity

7. Team Leadership & Capability Development

• Executes through a structured high-performance, modern marketing organization with defined ownership across Brand, Demand Generation, Digital, and Analytics
• Build and lead a high-performance, modern marketing organization
• Establish strong leadership across:
  • Brand strategy
  • Demand generation
  • Digital and analytics
  • Content and field marketing
• Define clear roles, ownership, KPIs, and accountability mechanisms
• Build a culture focused on execution discipline, creativity, speed, and measurable outcomes

Experience & Qualifications

Required

• 15+ years of progressive marketing leadership experience
• Proven success building and scaling category-defining brands
• Demonstrated ability to drive both brand creation and measurable commercial growth
• Experience in industrial, automotive, vocational, OEM, or similarly complex B2B sectors
• Track record of driving pipeline and revenue impact, not just awareness
• Experience marketing to multi-stakeholder, long-cycle buying environments
• Strong commercial, operational, and strategic mindset
• Proven experience implementing AI within marketing strategy and operations

Preferred

• Commercial vehicle, truck, or industrial equipment experience
• Experience building brands with strong operator and customer loyalty
• Background in grassroots, field-driven, or community-led marketing
• Experience leveraging influencer or creator ecosystems in industrial markets
• Experience modernizing marketing organizations and systems

What Success Looks Like

• The company is recognized as a market leader within its vocational categories
• Brand awareness, credibility, and influence increase materially
• Strong and sustained growth in direct customer engagement
• A predictable, scalable demand generation engine is in place
• Marketing is fully aligned with Sales, Service, and Commercial leadership
• AI materially improves marketing efficiency, cycle time, and output quality
• Marketing is viewed as a core commercial growth driver, not a support function
• The brand achieves high levels of loyalty, advocacy, and long-term relevance