Director of Product Marketing

Director of Product Marketing (iO-Sphere & SAIGE)Are you an ambitious, hungry, and data-driven product marketing leader who wants to redefine the future of adult technical education?iO-Sphere and our new awarding body, SAIGE, are building the future of higher and further education—aligned with employer needs, powered by experience and AI, and focused purely on career and business outcomes. Our employer-aligned qualifications, training programmes, and innovative skills pathways are built and designed to deliver tangible business benefit to companies and lasting career success to our learners. We are at a pivotal moment, rebranding iO-Sphere and launching SAIGE as the global authority in AI skills. We need a strategic operator who can own the market position, product-to-market lifecycle, and overall brand success for both entities in highly competitive, global markets.This role is not for a traditional campaign manager; it is for a strategic Go-to-Market leader who lives and breathes market differentiation, product strategy, customer experience, and funnel optimisation. You will be the commercial brain that translates market insights into world-class propositions and ensures our customers have an exceptional, end-to-end experience. This role is not an individual contributor and will build and lead a high-performing team of specialists and agencies.Key Responsibilities1. Strategic Positioning & Market Creation (The Brand Architect)Own Brand Positioning and Differentiation: Define, articulate, and embed the highly differentiated positioning and messaging for the rebranded iO-Sphere and the new global SAIGE brand.Competitive Intelligence & Market Gaps: Establish a world-class system for continuously monitoring competitors, identifying market white-space, and translating insights into a competitive advantage. You must have your ear to the ground and just love this space.Voice of the Customer: Deeply understand the needs of our key audiences—B2C learners, B2B companies, and government funders—and use this insight to shape product, brand, and GTM strategy.2. Product-to-Market Ownership (The Proposition Builder)End-to-End Product Lifecycle: Own the process from market gap identification through to successful product launch, ensuring speed to market and quality in execution.New Product Proposition: Work across the business to package up or build new, differentiated training programmes and qualifications, focusing on modularity, employer alignment, and laddering into degrees over time. This means you can see what really matters and separate out what our customers really need from the hype.Launch Excellence: Own the commercialisation of new products, driving them through the market and partnering with Performance Marketing to deliver beautiful, easily maintained, and compelling campaigns. 3. Growth & Funnel Optimisation (The Data-Driven Operator)Marketing Machine Blueprint: Define the data, process, and technology required to be exceptionally fast and efficient. AI, automation, and speed must feature heavily in your thinking, with a willingness to try things and learn. Continuous Funnel Optimisation: Drive the continuous improvement of existing products and funnels. Ensure customers are moving through our acquisition funnels easily and as automatably as possible—this is purely a product-marketing function, not a sales role. Manage the marketing budget to maximise our return.Data-Driven Focus: You must be data-driven and focused on building the necessary insights and processes to achieve exceptional marketing performance.4. Leadership & Culture (The Team Builder in Cape Town)Local Cultural Leadership: Be a visible, engaged, and inspiring leader within our Cape Town office. You must enjoy and actively plan to build a high-performing, motivated, and scrappy team culture.Team Development: Recruit, coach, and mentor a product and brand marketing function capable of world-class execution at speed.Cross-Functional Influence: Work closely with the company's senior management and product teams to drive cross-functional alignment on strategic objectives and commercial goals.Candidate RequirementsExperience: Proven experience as a senior Product Marketing or Go-to-Market Director/VP, ideally in a fast-paced EdTech, SaaS, or highly innovative B2B/B2C organisation. Leadership Track Record: Demonstrable experience building, motivating, and scaling high-performing teams. A genuine passion for cultivating a strong, ambitious culture.Market Complexity: Experience navigating the complexities of both B2B (commercial training, apprenticeships, levy-funded programmes) and B2C markets. Experience with regulated qualifications (e.g., Ofqual) is a significant advantage. Be savvy - able to spot unique opportunities across dimensions to help - cross-sector, interdisciplinary, geography - to meet a variety of needs.Strategic & Scrappy: You are equally comfortable defining the brand strategy as you are diving into funnel performance data. You are a self-starter who thrives in building processes and differentiation from the ground up.Location: Based in Cape Town, with a commitment to being in the office a few days a week to help build our culture and team. Our offices are near Riverlands mall right now. We’re happy with remote work for the rest of the time. Please note that in the short term, this role is a contractor role until we set up a permanent entity in South Africa in 2026.