Marketing Manager

Prodigy Finance - who we are

Prodigy Finance is a platform that enables financing for international postgraduate students at the world's best universities, whilst delivering competitive financial and social returns to alumni, institutional and private investors.

This borderless and innovative model enables education loan financing to students from across the globe, whilst using predicted post-degree affordability rather than present-day salary. Since 2007, Prodigy Finance has extended over US$1 billion through the platform to fund over 25,000 students from over 130 countries.

Our team of over 230 (and growing) is already truly global. Our head office is in London with much of the team being based in beautiful Cape Town. We also have team members in Europe, Asia and the United States.We are funded by some of the best, pre-eminent institutions in the world including Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, RMIH, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.

Why this is an amazing opportunity

This is a key role in the business, reporting directly to the Head of Acquisition, and is perfect for an experienced marketing professional who wants to supercharge their career by taking ownership of designing and implementing best in class marketing strategies that bring Prodigy Finance closer to achieving our mission of helping the 5.6MM international students gain equal access to life-transforming education.

The sense of impact and reward will be huge. You will help to build a product which makes a very real difference in the world. Be a part of delivering socially responsible financial services to high potential, aspiring students; make it possible for students from more than 130 countries to obtain the funds to fulfil their dream of studying at the world's top universities and schools.

We are a non-hierarchical team; this means that you are going to get exposure to all aspects of our business immediately. You'll gain as much accountability as you can handle and have a huge influence on scaling the company.

Our international team is very sociable. We drive engagement and the development of strong working relationships through creating fun and intentional moments of connection between the members of our team; you will interact with the broader business on a regular basis.

The position can be based in London or Cape Town, but remote locations will also be considered.

Each day, we work towards our goal of building one of the top FinTech teams and cultures anywhere in the world. This means putting a lot of time into ensuring we only hire people with exceptional potential and creating an environment that allows each person to unlock their full potential.. If you would like the opportunity to work with an exceptional group of talented and passionate individuals, and in a business that strives to see you achieve and exceed what you thought you were capable of, then we think Prodigy might just be a great fit for you.

Why join Prodigy Finance

Be a part of a pioneering global growth company. Experience the excitement and learn from being part of an incredibly fast-growing young company. No kidding - exponential growth. Happening right now. Be pivotal in continuing to scale the business by identifying smart solutions and partners with tech at the heart of it

Enjoy the agility and flexibility offered by our culture. We're still a start-up at heart, so you can expect a sociable, relaxed and friendly work environment (with a serious coffee culture where you can wear shorts to work)

• We will help you make your mark. Make a real impact on the business and experience a steep learning curve with huge opportunities to grow and develop. Gain an inside perspective on the functioning of a venture-backed FinTech company with successful start-up roots, backed by top VCs, learn day-to-day management and build functional expertise
• Build a platform that helps to make a very real difference in the world
• What you will do in the role

As the Marketing Manager, you'll execute the marketing strategy end-to-end. Content, digital, campaigns, events, PR agency management, and everything in between. Your plan will help us position and spread brand awareness of our incredibly impactful message of providing equal access to life-changing education globally. Along the way, you'll help collaborate closely with other teams in Product, Operations and Business Development.

Specific responsibilities:

• Develop and implement marketing strategies for both growth and retention
• Work closely with the Head of Acquisition to develop lead generation strategies, manage workflows, and increase conversions.
• Bring the brand to life through (new and existing) customer touchpoints online and offline, including our content, business development outreach, website, and operations/ customer support
• Manage a growing team of marketing professionals, including:
• Oversee Email Marketing strategy and implementation
• Help drive the communication strategy to ensure a seamless end-to-end customer experience
• Create lead-nurturing programs and email campaigns for trigger/drip communications marketing.
• Test additional communication channels (i.e. SMS, Push Notifications, Other)
• Manage Social Media content creation and channel engagement
• Drive Content Marketing - Website, Blogs, Social, etc.
• Help create an ambitious strategy for Content, which is something our target audience have a vast appetite for, that might span the spectrum from forums for peer-to-peer discussions all the way to intellectual capital
• Build our Community team to leverage student ambassadors/mentors to amplify the brand and grow our social media networks
• Support our growing Performance Marketing team as they continue to test and develop our strategy for 2023+
• Assist with Partner marketing (webinars, co-branded materials, etc.)
• Use your understanding and experience of SEO best practices to help drive traffic to our website and ensure our content is updated regularly.
• Help craft and oversee an ambitious program of PR, rooted in richly-developed view-points on a small set of themes relating to our brand
• Build and analyse key metrics and traffic patterns to measure attribution/performance of marketing programs and create communication and documentation strategies to institutionalise learnings.
• Refine and solidify the Prodigy Finance brand message in a cohesive cross-company approach
• Help us measure and interpret brand performance like Awareness & Consideration for our target audiences in multiple markets
• Collaborate with the product development team to identify product trends and communicate the features, benefits, and competitive advantages of Prodigy Finance's offering.

What does success look like

A successful marketing manager will:

• Be the protector and champion of our brand identity and form externally and internally across all channels
• Drive a direct marketing, campaign testing and results focused mind set in all marketing and customer engagement initiatives
• Be an unstoppable force in ensuring our USP's are effectively crafted , communicated and reach all our customer segments
• What you will be measured on

Quantitatively:

• Levels of Awareness for our key demographics (across multiple markets)
• Campaign performance and team KPIs
• Maximizing A/B tests within and across channels to drive continuous improvement
• Customer satisfaction metrics and NPS

Qualitatively:

• Creation and execution of a strong multi-channel marketing strategy
• A focused and aligned team that leverages each other's skill sets for the overall growth and success of the team
• A clear product positioning that highlights Prodigy Finance's USPs, explains the customer markets that we support, and builds trust in our future earnings model.
• What you need to be great at
• Defining and bringing life to a brand, without the dependency of substantial media spend
• Fantastic storytelling that focuses a dispersed team and distributed customer segments with clear takeaways
• Ability to execute on a variety of marketing campaigns, driving lead generation and improving lead conversion to accelerate customer applications.
• Understanding of how to leverage a tight customer network to build social proof and accelerate cost-effective customer acquisition
• Experience managing a team with strong supervisory skills.
• Working across borders: our audience spans multiple continents and our team is dispersed throughout Europe, South Africa, the United States and India
• Influencing and collaborating skilfully within and beyond Acquisition, Marketing, Product and Design teams
• Systems thinking and solid understanding of scaling within organisational capacity constraints
• Qualification and Experience;
• At least 7 years' experience in Marketing and Leadership
• Diverse experience in building go-to-market strategies and optimising campaigns across channels including SEM, Social, SEO, Email
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Strong organisational skills and attention to detail
• Experience that would be nice to have (but we'll trade off if everything else fits)
• Start-up experience. Sometimes the earth moves beneath your feet at Prodigy Finance, so you've got to be comfortable with ambiguity, and able to adapt easily as you set up processes for us to grow into.
• Experience working in financial services or another regulated environment
• Cross-border experience: marketing to audiences and managing teams across borders

The Prodigy Finance fit; attributes which run true in everyone at Team Prodigy. To be an A player at Prodigy Finance, you need to possess - in spades - the following attributes:

Innovative + Smart

Be curious enough to want to know more, think out of the box, maybe even break the box, show initiative and be smart about it to find implementable, impactful solutions.

International + Accountable

Push yourself to be better every day. Work with others across the world, be resilient, add value and then hold yourself accountable. Encourage and celebrate each other.

Energetic + Fun

Sense of humour = survival. Bring energy and fun. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Work hard and find the time to play. We're in this together.

Do you want to be our next Marketing Manager? Here's what to do now:

If this sounds exciting and you'd like to have an informal chat, get in touch below and tell us why you want to work at Prodigy Finance.