Communications & Marketing Lead

The Communications & Marketing Lead is the operational lead sitting at the intersection of communications strategy, digital marketing, and global programme delivery. This role carries high autonomy to propose and manage paid media budgets, oversee a team of four, and design internal workflows. The ideal candidate will operate strategically while remaining closely involved in execution, ensuring all public-facing content is clear, specific, and credible.

What Success Looks Like

● Global programmes are fully recruited to target metrics.

● Paid campaigns are data-driven, optimized autonomously, and operationally structured.

● The 4-person team is well-directed and self-sufficient.

● External funders and partners receive accurate, high-fidelity, and on-brand communications.

Responsibilities:

Comms Strategy & Stakeholder Management

• Develop global communications strategies and campaign narratives for INCO programmes.

• Adapt complex research findings into clear narratives for learners, funders, and employers.

• Balance competing priorities between internal program teams and external corporate/institutional funders.

• Authority: Act as the brand guardian; confidently push back on partner or funder messaging to maintain quality and strategic fit.

  Paid Media & Digital Performance

• Plan, launch, and optimize complex paid social campaigns across Meta and LinkedIn targeting 30+ countries.

• Track and diagnose full-funnel conversion metrics (CTR, CPC, CPL, CVR).

• Align landing pages, typeforms, and HubSpot CRM workflows to reduce user journey friction.

• Authority: Autonomously make go/no-go decisions, including pausing or restructuring underperforming campaigns and reallocating budgets.

  Content, Creative & PR

• Write and oversee high-impact ad copy, headlines, social content calendars, and press releases.

• Provide creative direction on visual assets, design briefs, and brand application.

• Own website publishing operations and copy structure via Wix Studio (including basic DNS management).

• Track and amplify media placements across owned and earned channels.

  Team Leadership & Operations

• Manage, mentor, and quality-check the output of 4 direct reports.

• Design and maintain internal workflow systems (Kanban structures, intake processes, capacity dashboards) using or Airtable.

• Standardize processes to eliminate operational bottlenecks and recurring time-sinks

• Experience: +5 years in communications/marketing, with proven experience at a senior management level.

• Campaigns: Hands-on experience building, optimizing, and reporting on Meta and LinkedIn paid campaigns.

• Leadership: Proven track record managing budgets and leading a small team.

• Operations: Experience building internal team workflows and project management systems.

• Comms Powerhouse: Exceptional copywriting skills with a strict intolerance for vague, generic text. Experience in mission-driven, education, or social impact spaces.

• Soft Skills: Confident adviser who can establish boundaries and push back on senior leadership or institutional funders when required.

• AI Fluency: Demonstrated ability to leverage AI tools (generative content, campaign optimisation, data analysis) to increase team output and quality. Comfortable setting the standard for AI usage within a team — knowing when to use it, how to prompt effectively, and how to critically evaluate outputs. Experience or strong appetite for coaching direct reports on practical, responsible AI workflows.

Nice to have:

• Proficiency with HubSpot, Typeform, Monday.com , Airtable, or/and Wix Studio .