CMO and marketing leadership search.
INC'D recruits CMOs, demand generation leaders and senior marketers for PE-backed essential services businesses.
Marketing is an operating system, not a presentation.
The useful question is not whether a candidate can grow spend. It is whether they can connect channel investment to leads, booked calls, agreements, retention, lifetime value and market-level economics.
In multi-brand platforms, the leader must also know what to centralize, what to preserve locally and when a rebrand will create more disruption than value.
Roles we recruit.
What we assess.
- CAC, LTV, payback and conversion visibility.
- Residential, commercial and channel experience relevant to the mandate.
- Multi-brand and multi-market operating models.
- Call center and lead-to-booked-work understanding.
- Integration of agencies, systems and acquired marketing teams.
- Evidence of profitable demand rather than headline growth.
Where marketing searches go wrong.
Spend without unit economics
A marketer who can grow spend but cannot connect it to booked jobs, cost per customer and lifetime value is a risk.
Dependence on paid leads
Businesses that rely on lead aggregators pay more every year. Building referral and local demand is worth more over time.
Rebranding too early
Rebranding acquired companies before their customers are secure can destroy the local trust that made them worth buying.
Marketing detached from operations
If the call center, dispatch and technicians cannot convert demand, the marketing budget is wasted.
How the role changes by vertical.
- Home Improvement
- VP of Customer Acquisition. Runs the lead engine: digital marketing, local search, referral programs and turning inquiries into booked jobs. Lead-to-job conversion shapes the whole business.
- Painting
- VP of Customer Acquisition. Builds the referral engine, digital marketing and customer follow-up that turn one-time jobs into repeat work.
- Solar & Energy
- VP of Sales and Customer Acquisition. Runs lead generation and conversion, including how financing options are presented, while keeping acquisition cost under control.
How INC'D runs the search.
We establish the customer model, channel mix, call-center reality, brand structure and unit economics before approaching marketing candidates. Assessment focuses on profitable demand and operational adoption, not presentation skill or media spend alone. A typical shortlist contains three to five qualified marketing leaders within two to four weeks of engagement.
How our executive search works →
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