About the Company

While digital technologies are transforming wide swaths of the insurance industry, some segments remain a work in progress.  The effortless procurement of commercial insurance, for example, is still challenged by access to carriers, unclear documentation, and the many integrations required to overcome fragmentation of requirements and choice.  These hurdles impede digitization/transformation efforts, driving project costs too high and making timelines too slow.

Our client’s mission is to connect insurance to the world.  They offer a “write once, access many” platform that software developers can use to overcome barriers and focus on building delightful, frictionless user experiences. The winners are insurers, brokers and customers alike.

Our client’s technologies have been described by early customers as a game changer. Leveraging this market validation now calls the effectively framing, educating and communicating of the power and potential of their technologies to their multi-billion-dollar market. The marketing aspects of this collective task will be the responsibility of the Chief Marketing Officer.

Our client is Toronto-based, well-funded and supported by blue chip industry veterans.

This is an outstanding opportunity that features:

• Explosive industry and company growth
• Disruptive technology
• Committed leadership and investors
• An opportunity to make a real difference

Scope of the Position

Reporting to the CEO, the CMO will be responsible for planning and executing high-impact, strategic marketing programs to position, message and promote the firm’s unmatched technologies.  The position will also manage the execution of marketing campaigns and lead/demand generation strategy, to support new demand and pipeline conversion.

The CMO is a key contributor to achieving our client’s near-term and long-term objectives. The CMO works closely with other members of the executive team to deliver technologies that will be highly successful in the marketplace.

Functional Tasks

• Build a world class marketing organization capable of defining the category and offering
• Develop go-to-market plans so that the company can dominate the category in a repeatable, scalable manner
• Jointly with the firm’s VP Sales, develop and execute outcomes focused go-to-market strategy, including research, launch, communications, training, and execution.
• Develop effective positioning and collateral working with product, sales, and CEO.
• Manage the Marketing budget and measure ROI attainment thru performance indicators.
• In concert with leadership, strive to maximize KPI results through accurate forecasting.
• Create, deliver, and execute exceptional demand-gen campaigns. Identify and execute innovative, out-of-the-box programs to drive leads and pipeline resulting in strong ROI.
• Manage content and inbound marketing programs including campaigns, content marketing, thought leadership, and lead scoring to generate and qualify leads for sales.
• Develop effective sales tools, enablement programs, and presentations.
• Build and enhance the company into a truly world-class brand.
• Be an evangelist, manage the website, social media channels, blog, newsletter, and publicity to promote and build a reputation with prospects and partners.
• Ensure brand alignment throughout the end-to-end engagement experience.
• Partner with Sales to drive effective prospecting through vertical and role specific sales enablement campaigns
• Implement and execute a robust demand generation and lead nurturing engine, resulting in qualified leads and opportunities that translate to top-line revenue growth
• Remain abreast of competitive offerings, best practices, pricing and distribution strategies.
• Lead the product vision and strategy development process
• Performing market research, market validation and whitespace analysis to identify new opportunities for existing and new products
• Foster close relationships with all key market constituents (customers, non-customers, analysts and competitors) to validate product strategy
• Oversee/complete competitive analysis against key criteria. Identify, analyze and distill customer requirements into a prioritized set suitable to achieve the business goals of the company.
• Maintain close oversight of market analyses to develop and provide market requirements in response to customer needs, and market opportunities
• Understand the business case for proposed products and initiatives, including cost/benefit estimates, market trends, competitive analysis, risk analysis, industry best practices and product development timelines. Establish selection criteria for product opportunities.
• Ensure that company is represented at relevant external activities such as industry trade shows, customer meetings/presentations and standard body conferences.

Key Performance Indicators

In light of the identified responsibilities, the following are deliverables that the position is designed to achieve.

• Specific performance measures will be agreed upon with the successful candidate.

Competency Profile

The following competencies listed below define the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at our client:

Results Orientation

Focuses strongly on achieving agreed upon outcomes and ensures that key objectives are met. Conveys a sense of urgency and drives issues to closure. Aims to improve upon past performance. Establishes aggressive personal targets and strives to achieve them.

Strategic Approach

Develops a strategic plan to realize the vision. Revises strategy in light of changing circumstances. Takes a long-term view of organizational success. Works to clarify long term organizational goals. Able to stand back from immediate problems in order to focus on more far reaching ideas.

Planning & Objective Setting

Systematic in approach to work. Produces action plans in which objectives are defined and steps for achieving them are clearly specified. Plans by breaking down large task into subtasks. Develops plans that anticipate obstacles. Is realistic about time-scales and builds in appropriate checkpoints, milestones and controls in order to ensure that desired results are realized.

Communication

Expresses ideas in a clear, fluent and concise manner. Written and oral arguments are compelling and responsive to the needs of the audience. Comprehends communications from others and responds appropriately.

Customer/Client Orientation

Strives to provide customers/clients with personalized and efficient service. Anticipates customers’/clients’ needs. Quickly follows up on customer/client contacts and complaints. Monitors and acts on measures of customer/client satisfaction.  Develops high-impact relationships with key external clients, with the ability to envision and advocate a mutually beneficial long-term partnership between the company and the client.

Team Skills

Helps to create a sense of team spirit and harmonious relations through cooperation and support. Balances personal goals with those of the team. Fosters collaboration among team members.

Innovation

Generates new ideas. Challenges existing assumptions. Goes beyond the status quo. Recognizes the need for new or modified approaches. Brings various perspectives and approaches together, combining them in a creative fashion to implement effective improvements.

Preferred Experience and Education

The following indicates specific industry, academic and functional experience/qualifications that are important to the successful achievement of the identified responsibilities and performance deliverables.

• Proven experience developing marketing strategies for a B2B software, platform or software-related companies
• Several examples of having successfully led and carried out Go-to-Market Software launches (ie. more than one)
• Experience in category creation
• Experience working with insurers and or brokers an asset
• Understanding of the nuances of platforms which can be built upon; experience with developers an asset
• Experience with account-based marketing
• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or related field required; MBA, preferred
• Experience in early stage organizations preferable
• Excellent in written and verbal communication skills; strong presentation skills
• Able to work on multiple projects and deliverables simultaneously
• A self-starter with ability to work with minimal supervision

Remuneration & Benefits

• Highly competitive compensation package structured to the needs of the successful candidate.

If interested, please contact:

Robert Hebert StoneWood Group Bus: 416-365-9494 Ext. 777 rhebert@stonewoodgroup.com