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
$1 million to $25 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.
These bands are specific to cybersecurity go-to-market roles, not general B2B SaaS. Security pays above the cross industry midpoint: the buyer is technical, the cycle is longer, and the pool with real security context is small. Figures are directional, for scoping a description or a target range rather than making or accepting an offer. Live posted ranges come from GTM Radar and appear 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.
What kind of Head of Growth should I hire?
Start with what the company is losing, not the title. Every marketing leader at an early stage company is a full stack marketer with broad working knowledge across six disciplines and real depth in two or three: brand and category, demand and pipeline, product marketing and positioning, content and thought leadership, field and partner marketing, or revenue and operations. If prospects have never heard of you, you need depth in brand. If they hear the pitch and do not understand the difference, you need depth in product marketing. If the story converts and there is not enough of it, you need depth in demand. If nobody trusts the numbers, you need depth in operations. The diagnose path in the builder scores this from your coverage grid and six situational questions, then names the lead discipline, the two strengths to require, and the first hire that adds depth where the leader is broad.
Which kind
Which kind of Head of Growth do you need?
Every leader who takes this title at an early stage company is a full stack marketer: broad working knowledge across the six disciplines below, deep on two or three. The one they lead from decides what the company gets in the first year, and the one they go broad on is where the first hire underneath them adds depth. The diagnose path in the builder scores which one your gap needs.
Brand and category
Category definition, the company narrative, analyst standing, and the public voice the market comes to recognize.
Right when: The company is defining a category rather than entering one, an analyst or acquirer conversation is coming, or the CEO answers the category question differently every time.
Broad here, not deep: Pipeline math, attribution and campaign infrastructure. Programs get built to serve the story rather than the number, and the board finds out in the quarter the story is not yet converting.
Where depth gets added: Demand Generation Lead. Someone who owns the pipeline number and the channel mix, so the narrative has a machine underneath it.
Demand and pipeline
Campaign strategy, channel mix, funnel conversion and the marketing sourced pipeline number, with the growth and performance instincts a product led motion needs.
Right when: The story is settled and converting when someone hears it, and the constraint is how many of the right people hear it. Sales trusts the message and is short on pipeline.
Broad here, not deep: Category narrative and positioning depth. The machine runs, and sales keeps rewriting the message because the person running the machine did not stop to fix it.
Where depth gets added: Product Marketing Manager. Someone who owns positioning, the sales narrative and competitive work, so the machine is running the right message.
Product marketing and positioning
Positioning, launches, competitive intelligence and the narrative sales actually uses in the room.
Right when: Prospects hear the pitch and do not understand the difference, sales rewrites every deck, or the company loses evaluations it should win, and the rest of marketing is already covered. When the gaps run wider than positioning, a strategic leader who is deep in positioning is the better hire, with a product marketer underneath.
Broad here, not deep: Program volume and channel execution. The story is strong and the top of the funnel is thin, because building programs is the part this leader finds least interesting.
Where depth gets added: Demand Generation Lead. Someone who turns the positioning into programs and owns the pipeline number.
Content and thought leadership
Research, editorial, evangelism and the material a security buyer comes back to, plus the search and answer engine visibility that makes it findable.
Right when: Practitioners search the problem the company solves and find nothing from it, the company has no research or point of view the market cites, and the buyer is technical enough that product pages do not persuade.
Broad here, not deep: Pipeline accountability and marketing operations. The audience grows and the board asks what it converted to, and the honest answer is that nobody built the measurement.
Where depth gets added: Demand Generation Lead. Someone who turns audience into pipeline and owns the number.
Field, events and partner
Conferences, regional programs, channel and MSSP co-marketing, and the pipeline that comes off the floor and through partners.
Right when: The motion is enterprise or channel led, most pipeline comes from events and partners, and the company needs those programs run as a system rather than a calendar.
Broad here, not deep: Digital, content and the long arc brand. Strong quarters around RSA and Black Hat and quiet in between, because nothing compounds when the booth comes down.
Where depth gets added: Content Marketing Lead. Someone who builds what compounds between events and gives the field programs something to distribute.
Revenue and operations
Attribution, marketing operations, RevOps alignment, intent data and the model behind the pipeline number.
Right when: Marketing and sales report different numbers, nobody trusts attribution, the stack was bolted together by people who left, or the board wants a forecast marketing can defend.
Broad here, not deep: Narrative, positioning and brand. The dashboard is right and nobody can say what the company stands for, because measurement got the attention the message needed.
Where depth gets added: Product Marketing Manager. Someone who owns the message the machine is measuring.
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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