Hiring a Head of Growth Won’t Fix Unclear Strategy
- Laura Derbyshire
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
There’s a familiar moment in scale-ups.
Revenue has stalled, CAC is creeping up, and the board wants momentum. The leadership team agrees that something needs to change.
So the solution sounds sensible:
“Let’s hire a Head of Growth.”
A senior hire, a smart CV, someone who’s scaled before. Surely that will fix it.
Except it often doesn’t. Not because Heads of Growth aren’t good. But because they’re being hired into a vacuum.
A Head of Growth cannot create clarity where none exists. They can only amplify what’s already there. And if what’s already there is fragmented thinking, competing priorities and half-formed strategy, you don’t get growth.
And guessing, at this level, is expensive.
What’s coming up in advisory conversations right now
Over the past few months, I’ve had a growing number of advisory calls with founders and CEOs who are mid-hire and looking for a second opinion.
The roles are usually Head of Growth or Head of Marketing, and several are already at the final interview stage.
The founder or CEO is ambitious, commercial, often brilliant, but not experienced in marketing or brand. They want this one hire to:
Set long-term growth and brand strategy
Run day-to-day marketing execution
Manage agencies and freelancers
Own reporting, dashboards and performance
Translate board ambition into delivery
In other words, they’re trying to compress a board-level CMO, a growth strategist, a hands-on operator and a reporting engine into one role - because they want to move fast.
The problem is what happens next - you get an overstretched employee with conflicting expectations, no strategic air cover, and a founder quietly looking to them for answers they were never set up to own.
Why Head of Growth roles struggle when strategy is unclear
When strategy isn’t clear, the Head of Growth role can often have a lot to figure out.
Sales says one thing, marketing says another and product has its own roadmap. Plus, the board has a completely different mental model. And so the Head of Growth can spend their time reconciling competing narratives.
They often default to execution: channels get spun up, campaigns get launched, dashboards get built. There’s activity everywhere, but no shared definition of success.
They can also become the de facto strategist, not because they should, but because someone has to fill the gap.
This is where many scale-ups turn to a Fractional CMO - not as a stopgap, but as a way to bring senior strategic clarity without loading it all onto one hire.
Growth is an outcome of clarity
Strong growth companies start with decisions, not job descriptions.
They are clear on where growth is meant to come from: New customers? Expansion revenue? Pricing? Partnerships? Product? Market entry?
You cannot pursue all of them at once, no matter how ambitious you are.
They are aligned on trade-offs: What are we not doing this year? Where will we deliberately slow down to go faster later?
They understand their constraints: Brand maturity, budget, team capability, data, and leadership bandwidth.
They define success before they define activity. Not “more leads” or “better awareness”, but what materially moves the business forward.
This work is about leadership, and it’s the bit that gets skipped when pressure is high.
As McKinsey & Company research consistently shows, organisations that invest in strategic clarity and leadership alignment outperform those that rush into execution, not because they move faster, but because they move together.
What actually works in practice
Unless you are a very large organisation, the most effective setup usually looks like this:
You hire a strong Head of Growth or Head of Marketing who is experienced, ambitious and willing to learn (but not expected to carry the full strategic weight of the business alone).
Alongside that, you bring in senior, board-level marketing leadership in a Fractional CMO or advisory capacity.
That role does not replace the hire; it enables them. It provides:
Strategic direction as and when it’s needed
A sounding board for big decisions
Mentorship and development for the growth lead
Translation between board ambition and operational reality
Calm, experienced judgment under pressure
This gives the Head of Growth of Head of Marketing space to do their best work and gives founders confidence that someone senior has their back.
It also avoids the common failure mode where an overstretched hire burns out, underdelivers, and quietly becomes the next problem to fix.
Where OSER typically comes in
At OSER, we’re often brought in just before or just after these hires are made.
Sometimes through senior advisory support and sometimes through Fractional CMO work. Often as a combination of both.
Our role is to help founders and leadership teams get clarity on:
What growth actually means for their business right now
What a Head of Growth should truly own (and what they shouldn’t)
How brand, marketing, sales and product are meant to work together
Where leadership needs to stay involved, rather than delegate and hope
Once that’s clear, hiring stops being a gamble and becomes a lever for growth across the company's short- and long-term ambitions.
Hiring a Head of Growth feels decisive, whereas strategic clarity can sometimes feel slow, like you are adding a layer and a cost you could skip.
But one is a shortcut that often leads nowhere. The other is what unlocks sustainable, compounding growth.
If growth feels harder than it should, the answer usually isn’t another role.
It’s a better structure. Better thinking. And the right level of senior support at the right moment.
That’s where real growth starts.
At OSER, we help founders and leadership teams create clarity before execution, so growth hires, budgets and plans actually land.
Considering a Head of Growth or Head of Marketing hire or unsure how to structure it? We offer senior, second-opinion advisory for founders and CEOs before decisions are locked in.
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Common questions founders and CEOs ask us about growth hires
Do I need a Head of Growth or a Fractional CMO?
It depends on your level of clarity.
If strategy is clear, priorities are agreed, and leadership is aligned, a Head of Growth can be very effective.
If strategy is unclear, or you’re expecting one hire to define direction, run execution and guide leadership, you likely need senior input first. A Fractional CMO provides board-level experience and strategic clarity without the commitment of a full-time executive.
In many scale-ups, the most effective setup is a Head of Growth supported by a Fractional CMO.
Why do Head of Growth hires struggle in scaleups?
Head of Growth roles struggle when they are hired into an unclear strategy.
Common issues include conflicting expectations, too many responsibilities bundled into a single role, a lack of senior marketing leadership, and pressure to “figure it out” while delivering results.
Without clarity, the role becomes reactive rather than strategic - leading to stress, frustration and underperformance.
When is the right time to hire a Head of Growth?
The right time is when you can clearly answer:
Where growth will come from in the next 12–24 months
What success looks like commercially
What this role owns and what stays at the leadership or board level
How teams will work together
If those answers are fuzzy, hiring becomes a gamble rather than a growth lever.
Can a Fractional CMO replace a Head of Growth?
Not usually (and that’s not the goal).
A Fractional CMO provides strategic leadership and perspective, whereas a Head of Growth owns execution and momentum.
The strongest setups combine both: execution supported by experienced judgment.
What does a Fractional CMO do in a scaleup?
A Fractional CMO typically supports scaleups by setting strategy, aligning leadership, mentoring senior hires, bridging board ambition and delivery, and helping founders make better decisions under pressure.
They are most valuable during periods of growth, change or senior hiring.
Why isn’t hiring one senior person enough?
Because ambition increases complexity.
Trying to compress leadership, strategy, execution and reporting into one role often creates an overstretched hire who is set up to fail.
Growth happens when responsibility and support are structured properly, not when everything is dumped on one person.
How does OSER support founders and CEOs through growth hires?
OSER works with founders, CEOs, and leadership teams through Fractional CMO and senior advisory support to clarify strategy, properly structure roles, mentor growth hires, and provide board-level marketing leadership.
The goal is simple: help growth hires succeed, rather than struggle.
