Job Description

The Vacancy
Marketing Director Overview:
This is a unique and exciting opportunity to build something new . We are looking for an experienced and strategic Head of Marketing to lead a newly formed, full-stack marketing function that will operate independently from the wider corporate marketing team.
While part of a larger organisation, this marketing team will run as its own unit - with its own brand identity, website, social channels, and go-to-market approach - focused exclusively on promoting our technology solutions for the education sector, both in the UK and internationally.
Leadership & Strategy

• Define and execute the overall marketing strategy to drive awareness, demand, and customer loyalty across key education segments: UK state and independent schools, and international schools.
• Lead and inspire a multidisciplinary marketing team across digital, demand generation, events, comms/PR/social, product marketing, and content.
• Set clear KPIs and manage performance to deliver against commercial and brand objectives.

Change & Transformation

• Oversee the delivery of a new dedicated website, brand identity, and marketing infrastructure.
• Lead complex projects such as site migrations and channel stand-up (e.g. new social and comms platforms), ensuring minimal disruption and maximum impact.
• Champion change management across the team, fostering a culture of adaptability, resilience, and innovation during a significant transition period.

Brand & Content

• Establish and grow a compelling brand presence in the education sector, tailored to the unique needs of each sub-audience.
• Drive content strategy across all stages of the funnel, ensuring relevance, engagement, and alignment with buyer needs.

Pipeline & Growth

• Collaborate with sales to design and implement demand generation programmes that fuel pipeline growth and conversion.
• Use data and insight to refine messaging, optimise campaigns, and improve ROI across channels.

Customer Engagement

• Work cross-functionally to develop marketing programmes that retain and nurture existing customers, with a focus on cross-sell, upsell, and customer advocacy.
• Ensure consistent, high-quality communication and engagement throughout the customer lifecycle.

Stakeholder Management

• Act as the senior marketing voice within the business unit, reporting to leadership and working closely with product, sales, and customer success teams.
• Maintain a strong connection to the central marketing function to ensure brand alignment and knowledge-sharing where appropriate.

About You
Essential Experience:

• Proven senior marketing leadership experience with responsibility for the full marketing mix.
• A track record of leading high-performing teams across a range of marketing disciplines.
• Experience managing marketing change projects - including brand creation, website launches/migrations, and channel spin-outs.
• Strong background in B2B demand generation, ideally in tech/SaaS.
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on delivery in a fast-paced environment.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and bringing clarity and structure to new challenges.
• Collaborative leader who can operate in a matrixed organisation while owning a distinct marketing function.

Desirable:

• Experience marketing to the education sector (UK and/or international).
• Familiarity with CRM and marketing automation tools (e.g. Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo).
• Experience of running a marketing function akin to an in-house agency or start-up environment.

What We Offer

• The opportunity to shape a new marketing function from the ground up.
• A key leadership role with a high degree of autonomy and influence.
• A dynamic environment where entrepreneurial thinking is valued.

About IRIS
As one of the UK's largest privately held software companies, IRIS Software Group exists to simplify the lives of businesses, schools and organisations.
IRIS provides software solutions and services that substantially enhance operational compliance, efficiency and accuracy, empowering the users of our technology to look forward with certainty and confidence.
Over 4 million parents use our software to connect with their child's school, 18% of UK employees are paid via an IRIS payroll solution, 50,000 SMEs use IRIS cloud bookkeeping and 21,000 firms rely on us for legislative compliance.
Our operational software is the invisible but essential beating heart of our customers' businesses, supporting them in a range of objectives, from maintaining legislative compliance to boosting engagement with stakeholders and enhancing productivity.
It's vital these mission-critical functions work first time, every time.
That's why IRIS helps businesses run the tough stuff, stay compliant and get operational tasks done right first time, every time - so they can focus on productivity and growth.
IRIS is a company built on hiring the best people; our people are our greatest assets.
They enable us to be the innovative, market-leading, and high-performing company that we are today.
We're delighted to be certified as a Great Place to Work and one of the UK's Best Workplaces for Women.
These accolades confirm that our employees have a consistently positive experience at IRIS, with the certifications considering employee wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, trust in management, effective communication and recognition/reward.
IRIS is committed to engaging, rewarding and empowering our employees, and this is central to what we do.
This is why we work to create an environment where employees feel like they are part of a team.
Why work for IRIS?
The Benefits
Developing your career
We believe in creating a culture of engagement and reward to develop your potential and offer long-term career success. We do this by:
Leading
Supporting our managers to be great leaders, providing inspirational management resources and offering dedicated management development training.
Excelling
Rewarding individual excellence through dedicated initiatives and Employee Awards for demonstrating our values.
Growing
Offering regular training and development programmes tailored to each employee's development needs and providing a commitment to a 'learning culture' which shares knowledge, best practice and our long-standing expertise between employees.
Listening
We're committed to a culture of continuous improvement and listen to our employees via regular feedback sessions and employee engagement surveys.
Sharing
Our employees love the colleagues they work with. We promote a positive environment where our people feel comfortable, make friends and support each other.