Vice President Marketing
SmartSkin Technologies · Fredericton, New Brunswick
SmartSkin's technology is used by some of the world's largest pharmaceutical and beverage manufacturers. Its market profile, however, has not yet caught up with the strength of its technology or customer base.
The company has grown quickly, and its commercial organization is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Marketing is now entering the same next stage. SmartSkin has retained Hawthorne Recruitment to appoint a Vice President, Marketing to lead that evolution.
Reports to: Chief Commercial Officer
Team: Three, based across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with one further vacancy to fill
Location: Fredericton preferred; open to candidates elsewhere in Atlantic Canada with regular presence at head office
Compensation: Base salary of $140,000 to $160,000, plus a 20 percent performance bonus
About SmartSkin
SmartSkin's solutions are sold through a SaaS business model. Customers subscribe annually, per production line, to a package that combines the digital container twin, analytics software, replacement of damaged twins and ongoing support. The business is built on recurring revenue.
The digital container twins travel through high-speed filling and packaging lines exactly as a real vial, bottle or can would. They record the pressure, shock, tilt and rotation the product experiences at each point along the line. Paired with the company's Quantifeel™ analytics software, that data shows manufacturers where their equipment is damaging product and what to change.
The reason it matters is simple. In pharmaceutical manufacturing, a damaged container is a patient safety issue. In food and beverage, it can trigger a recall and put a brand at risk. SmartSkin helps manufacturers bring products to market safely and efficiently, without those failures.
SmartSkin operates globally and has a strategic partnership with SCHOTT Pharma. More than 500 product configurations are engineered in Fredericton, where the company employs roughly 80 people.
Revenue has grown by between 30 and 40 percent in each of the past three years. In both markets, the opportunity ahead is many times larger than the business built to date.
Why the role exists
SmartSkin is entering its next phase of commercial growth. As customer relationships deepen and the company scales internationally, marketing has an opportunity to become a more strategic driver of the business.
Historically, the company sold primarily around diagnostic engagements: studies of a customer's production line that provided measurements and a clear picture of what was going wrong. Increasingly, customers are using SmartSkin's technology across multiple sites as part of how they operate and improve their packaging lines.
That shift is creating deeper, more complex enterprise relationships. The commercial organization is becoming more structured in how it develops and manages them.
Until now, marketing has operated largely in support of immediate sales needs. The opportunity is to build a function that helps shape commercial strategy: clarifying the market narrative, creating demand, strengthening product marketing and making a measurable contribution to pipeline and growth.
The CEO and Chief Commercial Officer see marketing as central to SmartSkin's next stage of growth. The incoming VP will join the senior leadership team, own the marketing budget and have the mandate and organizational backing to build the function accordingly.
The mandate
Reporting to the Chief Commercial Officer and joining the senior leadership team, you will be accountable for:
- Positioning and narrative. Defining the company story behind its evolving commercial model and the language the commercial team takes to market.
- Demand generation. Building demand across long, technical buying cycles involving multiple stakeholders within regulated pharmaceutical and food and beverage manufacturers, with a contribution to pipeline that can be measured and defended.
- Commercial partnership. Partnering with the Chief Commercial Officer and sales leadership as both functions evolve, and equipping technical sellers with campaigns, collateral and tools they will use in the field.
- Product marketing. Owning messaging, launches and the translation of a highly technical product into terms a commercial buyer understands.
- Brand. Building a market presence that better reflects the strength of SmartSkin's technology, customer base and ambition, including assessing the brand architecture required to serve distinct pharmaceutical and food and beverage markets.
- Industry presence. Determining which conferences, publications, partnerships and industry forums merit SmartSkin's investment, and building the relationships that matter. Today, participation is more opportunistic than intentional.
- Budget. Owning the marketing budget: where it is invested, what it returns and the business case for change.
- Marketing infrastructure. Developing the website, content and collateral, marketing technology, measurement and reporting needed to support a scalable, high-performing marketing function.
- People. Leading a three-person team with one additional vacancy to fill, bringing clarity to roles, priorities and standards, and making an evidence-based case for where the function should grow.
- Communications. Overseeing corporate, customer, partner and internal communications as the company continues to scale internationally.
An honest picture of the role
SmartSkin has asked us to describe the opportunity candidly, including the work still to be done. Marketing is earlier in its evolution than the business it supports.
Some of the fundamentals expected of a company at SmartSkin's stage, including sales enablement, digital presence, marketing technology, measurement and reporting, still need to be strengthened. The team is intentionally lean relative to the opportunity. This is a genuine player-coach role: the incoming VP will build, lead and remain close to the work.
This is not, however, a turnaround of an unsuccessful business or an unproven product.
SmartSkin's technology is already commercially proven, with many of the world's largest pharmaceutical and beverage manufacturers as customers. Revenue is growing quickly, and the CEO and Chief Commercial Officer are committed to making marketing a stronger strategic and commercial partner.
The opportunity is to determine what matters most, establish the function's credibility, and build the systems, team and market presence required for SmartSkin's next stage.
The first two years will be build-heavy. This role will suit someone energized by momentum and ambiguity, who would rather help shape the answers than inherit a fully defined remit.
Who we are looking for
First and foremost, this is a B2B marketing leadership role.
The successful candidate will understand complex enterprise sales, know how to create demand through long and technical buying cycles, and understand what it takes for marketing to earn credibility with a sophisticated commercial organization.
Strong brand instincts are equally important. SmartSkin has considerably more market proof than market awareness. They should be able to turn technical differentiation into a distinctive market position and build a brand capable of carrying the company's next stage of growth.
Relevant backgrounds may include pharmaceutical, medical device, industrial manufacturing, instrumentation, complex B2B software or another technical market. Sector experience matters less than the shape of the work.
The successful candidate will have built or materially advanced a marketing function, not simply inherited and maintained one, and will be able to point clearly to what changed and the commercial impact that followed. This is a hands-on executive role.
They will be commercially fluent and at ease in complex enterprise sales environments. Long cycles, multiple buyer personas, technical validation and procurement should be familiar territory. They must be comfortable being held accountable for marketing's contribution to pipeline and revenue, with evidence rather than activity as the measure.
The VP will lead a developing team and be expected to bring clarity to roles, priorities and standards while building capability around them. This is not a mandate to arrive with a predetermined organizational chart. The first task is to understand the team and business, identify the gaps and make an evidence-based case for how the function should evolve.
The company's next chapter is still taking shape. The VP will be one of the leaders helping define it. A prior VP title is not a requirement. Scope, judgment and evidence of having done comparable work matter more.
To learn more
Hawthorne Recruitment has been retained by SmartSkin Technologies to lead this search. Apply today at Hawthorne Recruitment where we are committed to Matches made meaningful.
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