Heads of growth · the role
What does a head of growth do?
The short answer · updated
A head of growth is the senior person who owns a company’s growth number across the whole customer journey: how people find the product, start using it, pay and keep paying. They set the targets, run experiments across marketing, product and sales, read the data to keep what works, and lead a small team of marketers, analysts and engineers.
What is a head of growth?
A head of growth is a leader measured on one thing: whether the business is growing, and why. Where a head of marketing owns the brand and the campaigns, a head of growth owns the whole path from first visit to loyal customer, often summarised as acquisition, activation, retention, referral and revenue, and works on whichever stage is holding growth back.
The title is most common in software, consumer apps, subscription businesses and marketplaces, where the product itself does much of the selling and every step of the customer journey can be measured. In those companies growth work sits between marketing, product and data, so the head of growth is often the person who joins them up.
Reporting lines vary. A head of growth may report to the chief executive, the CMO or the chief product officer, and the senior version of the seat is sometimes called VP of growth or chief growth officer.
What a head of growth does day to day
The work starts with a model of the business: where customers come from, where they drop out, and what each improvement would be worth. From there the week usually covers:
- Targets and the growth model: the metrics that matter, the funnel behind them, and a forecast the board can follow.
- Experiments: a steady run of tests, each with a hypothesis, a measure and a decision to keep, change or drop it.
- Acquisition: finding the channels that bring the right customers at a cost the business can sustain, from search and paid social to partnerships and referrals.
- Activation and onboarding: with product, shortening the time between sign-up and the moment a new user sees the value.
- Retention and lifecycle: email, in-product messages and pricing changes that keep customers paying.
- Data and tools: tracking, analytics and testing tools that the team can trust, set up within the privacy rules.
- The team: hiring and leading growth marketers, analysts, designers and engineers, or borrowing them from other teams.
Head of growth vs head of marketing vs CMO
A head of marketing runs the marketing function: positioning, brand, content, campaigns and the marketing budget. The measure is usually pipeline or demand created.
A head of growth is measured further down the funnel, on activated, paying and retained customers, and works across functions to get there. Many of the levers are in the product: onboarding, pricing pages, referral loops and upgrade prompts.
A CMO sits on the executive team and owns the company’s whole market strategy. In a larger company the head of growth may report to the CMO; in a smaller one a strong head of growth may be the most senior commercial hire after the founders. Where the seat is on the executive team, see fractional chief growth officer jobs.
When a company needs a head of growth
A head of growth needs something to grow. Without customers and data there is little to experiment on and no reliable way to tell a winning test from noise. Kyle Poyar, writing for OpenView, argues that a head of growth tends to be most effective at scaling a product-led company with product-market fit, rather than building one from zero, and that an earlier business is often better served by a go-to-market lead from sales or a growth marketer.
The usual signs that the seat is due: a product people pay for, more than one channel bringing customers, enough volume to measure a change, and growth work scattered across teams with nobody owning the number. For the earlier seat, see founding GTM lead.
The rules growth work runs into
Growth teams live on tracking and messaging, and both are regulated. Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, a business must tell people about cookies, explain them and get consent before setting any that are not strictly necessary, by a clear positive action. Marketing emails, texts and calls have their own rules in the ICO’s direct marketing guidance.
Design choices are scrutinised too. The Competition and Markets Authority has published work on online choice architecture: how the presentation and placement of choices, including practices called dark patterns, can harm consumers and competition. A test that wins by confusing customers is a liability, not a result.
For subscription businesses, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 sets out duties on traders in subscription contracts and consumers’ rights to cancel, including during cooling-off periods. A head of growth who owns sign-up, renewal and cancellation flows needs to know them.
Skills and background a head of growth needs
No qualification is required. Heads of growth come from growth or performance marketing, product management, analytics, and sometimes engineering. What hiring companies test for is commercial judgement, comfort with data and experiment design, and the ability to get product, marketing and engineering to work on the same problem.
For the marketing side, the National Careers Service describes the routes into marketing management, from degrees and apprenticeships to moving across from sales or advertising, and names the Chartered Institute of Marketing among the professional bodies. CIM’s Global Professional Marketing Framework sets out the capabilities, including channels, analytics, user experience and the customer journey, that a growth leader draws on.
For roles open now and how to get one, see head of growth jobs.
Fractional, interim or permanent, and how to hire one
A permanent head of growth suits a company with product-market fit, steady volume and a growth target the board cares about every month.
A fractional head of growth works part of the week: to set up the growth model, tracking and the first run of experiments, or to lead a small team before the company can justify a full-time hire. See fractional head of growth jobs. An interim head of growth covers a departure or a defined push, such as a new market or a pricing change.
Where a fractional or interim head of growth works through their own limited company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply. Status turns on how the engagement runs in practice, and a medium or large client makes the determination. Our IR35 guide sets out the tests.
Pay depends on the company’s stage and funding, the size of the team, whether the role includes equity, and location. We publish no head of growth pay figure because we have no sourced one; listings show pay where the posting states it.
We recruit permanent, interim, fractional, part-time and temporary growth and marketing leaders, and non-executive directors. To hire a head of growth, every brief gets a shortlist of 3–5 after five-stage vetting, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
Questions people ask
What is a head of growth responsible for?
The company’s growth number across the whole customer journey: acquisition, activation, retention and revenue. They set the targets, run experiments across marketing, product and sales, and lead the growth team.
What is the difference between a head of growth and a head of marketing?
A head of marketing runs the marketing function and is usually measured on demand created; a head of growth is measured on activated, paying and retained customers and works across marketing, product and data. See what a head of marketing does.
When should a startup hire a head of growth?
Usually once it has a product people pay for, customers arriving through more than one channel and enough volume to measure change. Before that, Kyle Poyar argues in Growth Unhinged that a go-to-market lead or a growth marketer often fits better.
What skills does a head of growth need?
Commercial judgement, comfort with data and experiment design, a working knowledge of acquisition channels and the product, and the ability to lead people across marketing, product and engineering. No single qualification is required.
Is a head of growth the same as a chief growth officer?
Not quite. A chief growth officer sits on the executive team and may own marketing, sales and partnerships; a head of growth usually leads the growth function itself. See fractional chief growth officer jobs for the executive seat.
How much does it cost to hire a head of growth?
A permanent head of growth is paid a salary, often with equity in a venture-backed company; a fractional or interim one a day rate. Pay depends on stage, funding, team size and location. On every shortlist we set out each candidate’s pay or day rate.
How do I hire a head of growth?
Decide what the seat must move in its first year, check you have the product, data and volume for growth work, then choose permanent, fractional or interim. Our fractional head of growth jobs page sets out the part-week option; we send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
