Growth Marketing Lead (AI-First)
Location: Bangalore-based, remote — working core hours that overlap the US day (our team and customers are US-based)
Engagement: Contract to start, with potential to expand
Reports to: Founder / CEO
About MarcoPolo Learning
MarcoPolo Learning builds award-winning learning experiences for young children. Since 2013, we've reached hundreds of thousands of families and thousands of classrooms across North America, with our Emmy-nominated MarcoPolo World School app and The Polos TV series bringing STEM and global discovery to life for early learners.
We're now an AI-first company. Our newest product, Miss Audrey AI, puts a proactive AI coach and teaching assistant in the hands of early-childhood educators, supporting teachers in the moment with guidance, resources and family engagement. It opens up a new category in early learning, and we're building the growth engine to bring it to every teacher, centre and early-learning organisation that needs it. This is the role that leads it.
Backed by top-tier investors and running lean, we're looking for a senior, hands-on growth leader who wants to build that engine with AI at its core.
The role in one line
Lead MarcoPolo's growth. Define the story that makes educators and early-learning leaders see Miss Audrey AI as essential, build an AI-powered engine to reach them at scale, and turn that interest into sign-ups, paid subscribers and sales conversations.
This is not a general marketing role
This is not a single-channel role. It isn't only SEO, paid social, content calendars or app installs. Miss Audrey AI is creating a new category, so growth here comes from sharp positioning, smart outreach and constant experimentation rather than capturing existing search demand. We're looking for a strategic generalist who can set the direction, do much of the work hands-on, and bring the team along.
You'll work in a fast-moving, AI-first startup where AI is built into how marketing gets done, from research and outreach to creative, testing and reporting. You'll be the person who knows which tools are worth using, puts them to work, and keeps raising the bar on what our growth engine can do.
What you'll own
Positioning and messaging. Shape how we talk to teachers, centre directors and early-learning leaders. Test messaging angles quickly, learn from the results and sharpen the story until it consistently converts.
An AI-powered growth engine. Design and run AI-driven workflows for audience research, prospect enrichment, personalised outreach across email, LinkedIn and other channels, creative, landing pages and reporting. Review the output, refine it and keep improving it.
The Miss Audrey AI funnel. Take educators from free sign-up to first value to paid subscription, working with engineering on onboarding, upgrade moments and lifecycle messaging.
Pipeline for our sales team. Turn campaigns and product usage into qualified conversations with centre directors and organisation leaders, and equip our US sales team with the messaging and evidence to close.
The experiment loop. Decide what to test across audiences, messages, channels and offers; read the results; and double down on what works.
Tools and innovation. Stay ahead of the AI marketing landscape. Evaluate new tools, adopt the ones that move the needle, and help the wider team use them.
Leadership and communication. Present plans and results to leadership, explain the approach clearly to the team, direct freelancers and partners, and help build the function as it grows.
Report the numbers that matter. Pipeline, sign-ups, activation, paid conversion and cost to acquire, with a clear point of view on what to do next.
Expected outcomes
You'll be measured on results, not activity:
- Messaging: a clear, tested value proposition that resonates with teachers, centre directors and early-learning leaders.
- Growth engine: a live, AI-powered acquisition and outreach engine producing a steady flow of qualified sign-ups and conversations.
- Conversion: a measurable and improving free-to-paid conversion rate for Miss Audrey AI.
- Sales pipeline: a reliable flow of qualified opportunities handed to the US sales team.
- Experimentation: a regular testing cadence across messaging, channels and offers, with results that compound.
- Capability: new AI tools and workflows adopted across marketing, and a clear plan for how the function scales.
What you'll need (essential)
- 7+ years in growth or marketing across strategy, positioning and messaging, demand generation, lifecycle and experimentation. You're a generalist with real breadth, not a single-channel specialist.
- Leadership experience. You've owned a growth or marketing function, or a major part of one: setting strategy, directing people, agencies or freelancers, and working closely with founders or senior leadership.
- AI-first in practice. You use AI tools daily in your marketing work and can show workflows you've built and deployed. You keep up with the AI marketing landscape and know which tools are worth using.
- Experience building demand for a new or differentiated product, where you shaped the story and made the case rather than capturing existing demand.
- A confident, clear communicator, with excellent spoken and written English. You're comfortable presenting to leadership, working with a US-based team and customers, and explaining strategy simply.
- Data and experimentation fluency. Comfortable setting up measurement, reading funnel and campaign data, and running clean experiments.
- Startup pace and self-direction. You ask the right questions, propose a plan and execute with minimal oversight in a fast-changing environment.
Strongly preferred
- Experience marketing to educators, schools, childcare or early-learning organisations, or to individual users within larger organisations.
- Freemium or product-led growth experience, converting free users into paying subscribers.
- Experience working with or for a US-based company while based in India; you understand US customers, US working styles and collaborating across time zones.
- Prior startup experience: you know what it's like to build with limited resources and moving goalposts.
Nice to have
- EdTech, or any product sold to educators, parents or consumers.
- Familiarity with tools already in use here, including HubSpot, Customer.io, n8n, ClickUp and Webflow, and with AI-driven prospecting and outreach tools.
- Enough design sense to shape clean, conversion-focused web and email flows (you don't need to be a visual designer).
Engagement details
- Type: Contract to start, with potential to expand as the growth engine proves out.
- Location & hours: Bangalore-based and remote, with daily working overlap with our US team.
- Works closely with: The US sales team and AI-automation partners who support the technical build.
- Start: Immediate start preferred.
