Vice President of Marketing

About the Role

Appcues is recruiting a modern marketing leader to drive our next stage of growth. This is a critical role on our executive team and a rare opportunity to lead a talented, motivated team that’s already doing great work.

We’re looking for someone who deeply understands and appreciates the power of brand, product marketing, community, and content working together — and who knows how to connect those levers to create real, sustained demand. We are not interested in flooding MQLs; we are interested in building a sustained engine of ARR growth.

We’re looking for someone who brings clarity and calm in the midst of urgency — someone who creates space for strong ICs to thrive, unifies a high-performing team, and knows when to lean in vs. when to get out of the way. You rally teams, not by micromanaging, but by aligning and amplifying their strengths.

You’re fluent in the modern marketing stack and how AI is going to reshape marketing, but also in the constants of what won’t change in the way humans buy. You’re highly experimental and encourage teams to test and learn. You’re adaptable. You’re uniquely yourself.

And you’re excited by the idea of working with a CEO who believes in marketing beyond the MQL.

What You’ll Own

You’ll own all marketing capabilities and the full marketing budget at Appcues. Your primary focus will be to drive pipeline and new ARR growth — across both new logo acquisition and customer expansion.

You’ll inherit a strong team of senior individual contributors who are world-class people and strong and constantly growing across:

• Product Marketing
• Customer Marketing
• Brand & Design
• Content Marketing
• (We will be partnering to help ensure you also have the budget in place to get the right demand gen partner in place when the time is right)

We’ve recently aligned, through extensive validation, on a bold five-year strategy and have brought in a new product and finance leader to help drive our future in partnership with our existing executive team. Now, we’re ready to bring that story to market in a meaningful way. We’re looking for someone who can test, learn, adapt, and build momentum — quickly — while staying focused on what matters.

We’re also focused on going deeper with best-fit customers. That means aligning closely with Sales (new business, expansion, and renewals) and CS combine efforts around intent-rich accounts, enable sales execution, and deliver exceptional experiences all the way through the funnel.

Who You Are

• You’ve built — or helped scale — a B2B SaaS marketing function. We’re open to someone who’s done it as a number one, or someone who’s been a strong number two and is ready for their shot. This role could be a step-up for the right person.
• You’re a clear communicator. You provide sharp goals and clear expectations — and then get on your team’s side of the table to coach, guide, and support. You give people space to do great work. Or as the kids say, you let them cook.
• You unify teams. You rally high-performing individuals without creating silos, and lead with calm confidence — especially in fast-moving or high-pressure environments.
• You start with the customer—you focus on them, making them famous using their words and then work backwards.
• You thrive in transparent, highly collaborative environments — curious, candid, and data-driven, where teams debate, align, and move collectively forward.
• You bring deep expertise in account-based marketing — beyond buzzwords or a ‘lets an ABM tool’ strategy. You know how to align Sales and Marketing to attract and convert best-fit customers across segments and verticals.
• You operate in multiple dimensions — from high-level strategy to executional detail. That’s the expectation for leaders at Appcues.
• You believe in long-term brand building and aren’t afraid to get a little weird in the name of standing out. You’ve taken complex products and turned them into simple, compelling stories.
• You’re fully leaned into being an AI-first leader, helping your team move faster, stay focused on high-leverage work, and minimize unnecessary hierarchy by enabling strong, senior ICs to thrive.

What Your Future Team is Looking For

• We asked our marketing team what matters most in their next leader. Here’s what they said:
• Be a human — approachable, honest, and clear
• Trust us to own our work
• Help us stay aligned and energized — without silos
• Stay calm under pressure, and protect us from chaos from any stress you may feel as we navigate transforming and scaling the company

Why Join Appcues Now

• Appcues has reignited its company strategy. We’ve reignited our leadership. We’re investing in innovation that will reshape how customer experiences are delivered and measured. And we’ve refined our mission to focus on one thing: delivering experiences that drive growth.
• There’s new energy here — a new vision forward — and a unique opportunity to lead a marketing function that isn’t a fundamental rebuild. The foundation is strong. The team is strong. And the road ahead is bold
• If that excites you, let’s talk!

We’re fully remote, but we’re looking for someone on the East Coast to stay in sync with our leadership team. If you’re in the Greater Boston area, even better!

Compensation and Process

We’re committed to building a world-class leadership team — and we’ll compensate accordingly. Compensation for this role will be highly competitive and benchmarked against where we’re going, not just where we are. It will include a significant equity award, aligned with the scope and impact of the role and our long-term ambitions making you a true owner and partner in our company’s success. Marketing leaders have an average tenure of 24 months or less, we are looking for a partner to build our next 5+ years with us.

Our hiring process is intentionally thorough. We want to make sure we really get to know each other — and that you get to know us. The process starts with a focused set of conversations with our CEO and People leader. From there, we go deeper with a smaller group of finalists.

As a finalist, you’ll get context, data, and open space to ask questions. You’ll meet with members of the executive team, your future team, and our board — so we can ensure mutual fit from every angle.

You’ll also partner directly with our CEO for a deep-dive working session — to explore your thinking, hear your vision, and most importantly, establish the kind of working dynamic we believe is essential to our success.

Our Hiring Process

Stage 1: Initial Conversations

• First call with Cailin Schipani (30 min): Focused on cultural fit and key leadership markers.
• First call with Ryan Barry (45 min, with buffer): Focused on marketing philosophy, strategy, and execution depth.
• Technical Interview with Jared DeLuca (45 min)

Stage 2: Deeper Evaluation (5–7 Candidates)

• Second interview with Ryan (60 min): A deeper, more strategic conversation to inform finalist selection.

Stage 3: Finalist Deep Dive (2–3 Candidates)

• Finalists will sign an NDA and receive access to a data room that includes:
  • Appcues’ strategic narrative
  • Team structure
  • P&L overview
  • Product, content, and customer marketing plans
• Candidates will be encouraged to ask questions freely (asynchronously or live) and use the data to inform their final session with Ryan.
• We welcome visuals or light decks to support that discussion, but we’re not looking for polished consulting presentations — we care about your thinking, not formatting.

Panel Interviews

• 45 min each with:
  • Jess Haas (VP CX)
  • John McCarthy (VP Finance & Ops)