VP Marketing

The VP of Marketing is the senior executive responsible for marketing strategy, demand generation, brand, product marketing, content, growth, partnerships, and external communications. Sometimes called CMO at scale or Head of Marketing at smaller scale. Demand generation drives qualified leads or users to the company; brand building establishes the company's identity and positioning; product marketing handles positioning and messaging the product. The specific scope varies dramatically by company type (B2B SaaS VP-M is dramatically different from consumer brand VP-M, which is dramatically different from enterprise VP-M), making the hiring process particularly tricky because VPs with experience in one context often don't translate to another. It is one of the harder executive roles to recruit for and a position where founder-marketing-experience often determines the success of the eventual hire.

The variations of VP Marketing by company type:

B2B SaaS VP Marketing:

• Demand generation: paid acquisition, content marketing, SEO, events, webinars, account-based marketing.
• Product marketing: positioning, messaging, sales enablement, competitive intelligence.
• Brand: thought leadership, category creation, customer marketing.
• Operations: marketing tech stack (HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce), attribution, analytics.

Consumer brand VP Marketing:

• Brand and creative: brand identity, creative direction, advertising creative, influencer partnerships.
• Performance marketing: paid social, paid search, app store optimization, growth experimentation.
• Lifecycle: email, push notifications, retention marketing, loyalty programs.
• Earned media: PR, social media, community.

Enterprise VP Marketing:

• Account-based marketing for named accounts.
• Field marketing: events, trade shows, executive engagements.
• Sales enablement: collateral, proof points, case studies.
• Analyst relations: Gartner, Forrester, IDC relationships.
• Strategic marketing: positioning vs competitors, market education for new categories.

The shared core:

• Marketing strategy and resource allocation.
• Team building and management.
• Cross-functional partnership with sales (or growth/product at consumer companies).
• Measurement and reporting on marketing effectiveness.

When to hire VP Marketing:

• B2B SaaS: typically Series A-B when you have product-market fit and need to scale demand generation beyond founder/CEO efforts. Often after VP-S has been hired and is asking for marketing support.
• Consumer: often earlier (pre-seed or seed) because consumer growth marketing is critical from day one. Sometimes the founder is the marketing leader and a VP-M comes later.
• Enterprise: typically Series B-C when account-based motion needs dedicated leadership.

The founder-marketing-experience factor:

• Founders with marketing backgrounds often hire later (they can do it themselves longer) but hire better (they know what good looks like).
• Founders without marketing backgrounds often need to hire earlier (they can't do it themselves) but face higher risk of mishire (they don't know what good looks like).
• The mitigation for non-marketing-founder hiring: get marketing advisors involved in interviews; reference-check candidates thoroughly; trial period before fully committing.

Common VP Marketing hiring mistakes:

• Wrong context fit: hiring a consumer VP-M for a B2B company or vice versa. The skill sets don't translate; the hire usually fails within a year.
• Hiring too early: VP-M for a pre-product-market-fit company often spins wheels because there's no clear positioning to amplify.
• Hiring on resume vs results: prestigious VP-M from a famous company may have ridden a tailwind rather than built marketing capability. Check what they actually built, not where they worked.
• Unclear partnership with VP Sales: in B2B, VP-M and VP-S need clear partnership on lead handoff, attribution, and joint accountability for pipeline. Ambiguity creates dysfunction.

What founders get wrong: Hiring VP-M with the wrong context fit (consumer profile for B2B, or vice versa) or hiring on resume prestige rather than verified marketing capability. The right discipline: be explicit about the type of marketing capability your company needs, recruit specifically for that capability, reference-check candidates' actual contributions (not just where they worked), and involve marketing advisors in the interview process if you don't have marketing experience yourself. The wrong VP-M creates compounding problems through subsequent marketing hires.

Related: CEO · VP Sales · Brand Positioning · Growth Marketing · Hiring Plan

FAQ

What does a VP of Marketing do?
The senior executive responsible for marketing strategy, demand generation, brand building, product marketing, content marketing, growth marketing, partnerships, and external communications. The specific scope varies dramatically by company type (B2B SaaS, consumer, enterprise).

When should a startup hire a VP of Marketing?
For B2B SaaS, typically Series A-B when demand generation needs to scale beyond founder efforts. For consumer, often earlier (pre-seed or seed) because consumer growth marketing is critical from day one. For enterprise, typically Series B-C when account-based motion needs dedicated leadership.

What are the most common VP Marketing hiring mistakes?
Wrong context fit (consumer profile for B2B company or vice versa), hiring too early (before clear positioning exists), hiring on resume prestige rather than verified capability, and unclear partnership with VP Sales in B2B contexts. The marketing skill sets don't translate as easily across contexts as candidates' resumes suggest.