Scope
What a head of growth actually owns
The question this role exists to answer: What is the fastest path to more qualified volume, and what experiment proves it this month.
Owns
- Paid acquisition and channel performance
- Conversion rate optimization across the funnel
- Experiment velocity and the testing roadmap
- Product led acquisition loops where they exist
- Growth analytics and the funnel model
Shares
Does not own
- Category positioning and long arc brand narrative
- Analyst relations and press
- Sales team management
Timing
When to hire a head of growth
Too early
Below a few hundred thousand in ARR there is rarely enough traffic for experimentation to produce a signal you can trust.
The right window
One million to twenty five million in ARR, strongest at companies with a self serve or product led surface.
Outgrown
At scale this usually becomes a team under a CMO or VP of Marketing rather than a standalone leadership role.
How much work this actually is
At Series B, with none of it covered today, the functions in this role's scope represent roughly 2.0 full time equivalents. The scope represents roughly 2 people of work at this stage. A leader can carry that only with a team underneath them. If the plan is a solo hire, the description needs to shrink.
| Function in scope | Group | Full time equivalents |
|---|---|---|
| Demand generation and paid Campaign strategy, paid channels, nurture, pipeline targets and channel mix. |
Demand and awareness | 1.02 |
| Website, SEO and answer engine visibility Site conversion, organic search, schema and structured data, visibility inside AI answers. |
Demand and awareness | 0.60 |
| ICP definition and market research Who the buyer is, what triggers a purchase, TAM and segmentation work. |
Strategy and positioning | 0.34 |
Run your own coverage grid to see what this number looks like at your stage, with your team and your existing coverage.
Compensation
What a head of growth costs
Structure matters as much as the number
A modest bonus tied to company or function performance. The role is not commission driven.
Equity: Commonly 0.15 to 0.4 percent at Series B.
Bands are directional, for scoping a description or a target range rather than making or accepting an offer. Benchmark figures are triangulated from the sources listed and refreshed with the data file. Live posted ranges come from GTM Radar and are only shown once enough matched postings exist to be meaningful.
Title confusion
Titles a head of growth gets confused with
Most mis hires in go to market are not bad candidates. They are the right candidate for a different job than the one the company actually needed.
Head of Growth versus VP of Marketing
Growth is a velocity and experimentation mandate. Marketing leadership is a full funnel mandate that includes brand, content and product marketing. Early stage companies sometimes hire growth instead of marketing leadership, and typically discover the gap once category positioning starts to matter.
Head of Growth versus Demand Generation Lead
Heavy overlap in practice. Growth usually implies a product led or self serve surface and more product adjacency. Demand generation usually implies a sales led motion feeding a rep team.
Requirements
What to actually require
Non negotiable
- Ran paid acquisition with meaningful budget and reported on efficiency
- Built and ran a structured experiment program
- Comfortable in the analytics layer without waiting on a data team
Genuinely optional
- Product led growth experience
- SQL and dashboard building
- Lifecycle and retention experimentation
Everything in this column belongs under a preferred heading, or out of the description entirely. Requirements lists that mix these two columns filter out strong candidates who self select away.
Tools this role works in
- Analytics and BI
- Marketing automation
- CRM
- Search and visibility
- Conversion and testing
Name the specific platforms in the description. Platform experience is not fully transferable in operations and automation roles, and candidates screen themselves in or out on exactly this detail.
Before you post
Red flags in a head of growth job description
Screening
Interview questions that reveal fit
| Area | Question |
|---|---|
| Experimentation | Describe your last ten experiments. How many won, and what did you learn from the losses. |
| Efficiency | Walk me through the acquisition cost math at your last company and how you moved it. |
| Product adjacency | Give me an example of a change you pushed into the product itself and how you got it prioritized. |
Measure the role on
- Qualified volume against target
- Blended and paid acquisition cost
- Experiment throughput and win rate
- Funnel conversion rate by stage
First 90 days
First 30 days
- Instrument the funnel and find the biggest drop off
- Audit channel efficiency by source
By day 60
- Run the first structured experiment cycle
- Reallocate spend based on efficiency data
By day 90
- Deliver a measurable conversion or cost improvement
- Publish the experiment roadmap for the next quarter
Questions
Head of Growth hiring questions
What is the difference between a Head of Growth and a VP of Marketing?
A Head of Growth biases toward acquisition velocity, performance channels, experimentation and product led loops. A VP of Marketing owns the full funnel including brand, content and product marketing. The mandates diverge as soon as long term market narrative starts to matter.
Does a B2B company need a Head of Growth?
Only when there is enough traffic or product usage for experimentation to produce a reliable signal, and usually only when there is a self serve or product led surface to optimize. In a pure enterprise sales motion the same budget usually goes further on demand generation and product marketing.
Next step
Turn this into a job description scoped to your company
The reference above describes the role in general. The builder takes your stage, your team, your existing coverage, your territory and your stack, and produces a description scoped to the gap you actually have, with a scope load check before you post it.
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