The CRM Marketing Manager will lead CRM strategy, oversee campaigns, analyze data, manage communication, and implement improvements for user engagement.
Lifecycle &CRM Marketing Lead
Location: London (Oval), United Kingdom
Type: Full-time
What am I looking for?👋
Hi, I’m Ahmed, VP of Marketing at Zen Educate. I’m looking for someone to build our lifecycle & CRM marketing function from the ground up someone who’s excited to take full ownership of CRM across multiple user types and regions, and who has the drive to turn ideas into impact quickly.
This role isn’t about optimising something that’s already working, it’s about setting the vision, building the engine, and getting your hands dirty to make it run. We need someone who thrives on both strategy and execution, and who’s comfortable moving fast in an environment where nothing is handed to you.
You’ll be responsible for lifecycle marketing across the full breadth of our marketplace: teachers and schools, in both the UK and the US. That means thinking holistically about very different user journeys, setting priorities, and executing campaigns that help people get value from our platform and keep coming back.
Here’s what I value:
Execution eats strategy for breakfast. People who take ownership and are structured and thoughtful — but not afraid to ship fast and learn by doing.
The ability to manage complexity. You’ll be juggling multiple regions, user types, and lifecycle stages, so you need to stay focused on the bigger picture while managing the details.
Focus on real outcomes. You care more about user action and business results than open rates or vanity metrics.
Collaborative mindset. You’ll work closely with sales, ops, and marketing across two countries — so being able to align stakeholders, communicate clearly, and build strong relationships is critical. If you’re looking to lead and build a lifecycle function from scratch, move fast, and play a key role in a mission-driven company, I’d love to hear from you.
What we are building and why?
Getting the right teacher into the right school at the right time is a crucial problem to solve, both for education outcomes for children and for the sustainability of an industry that spends billions on this.
Since launching in 2017, we’ve saved schools over £30 million and we’re just getting started. In 2024, we closed the largest EdTech round in Europe and are expanding fast.
We are well established in the UK and growing at a phenomenal rate in the US 🚀
What we need now is to reach the next level in how we build our platform and customer lifecycle automations to support this growth. That’s where you come in 😉
What youll actually do?
Let’s get specific. Here’s the kind of work you’ll lead:
Build the foundation
Define lifecycle strategy, improve how we do segmentation, channel mix use (email vs SMS vs in-app), and CRM best practices.
Create systems to manage inbound requests, prioritise work, and set a clear roadmap.
Make sure our CRM setup can scale with us — across markets, users, and teams.
Drive high-leverage projects
Lead major automation and lifecycle initiatives that improve how we work and how users engage.
Examples include: automating comms to improve ops team efficiency, launching school retention campaigns, or building loyalty programs for educators.
Identify friction points, spot opportunities, and build solutions that scale.
Execute with speed and precision
Own delivery of day-to-day lifecycle and campaign requests — from product, ops, sales, and beyond.
Turn briefs into live campaigns quickly — and optimise based on performance.
Keep our messaging consistent, timely, and impactful.
You’ll work across the full funnel, across both sides of the marketplace — schools and educators — and across both the UK and US. Your work will directly influence how thousands of users interact with us every day.
Why this role is unique ⭐️
You’ll head up lifecycle marketing at Zen, with the chance to shape how we do CRM from the ground up.
You’ll work across teams and markets, from sales and ops to product and engineering - to drive real business impact.
You’ll have full ownership of a key growth channel with the freedom to test bold ideas, move quickly, and build systems that scale.
You’ll play a critical role in helping us support more schools and educators, more effectively, every day.
What makes you a great fit 👍
You believe execution > theory — you’re a structured thinker who moves fast, runs experiments, and learns by doing.
You’re comfortable working across multiple regions, segments, and lifecycle stages, without losing focus.
You care about outcomes not just opens and clicks, but user behaviour and business impact.
You can manage stakeholders across teams and countries, keeping things aligned while pushing forward.
You love solving problems and aren’t afraid to start from scratch when needed.
You care about working at a company where the mission matters and where your work helps people every day.
What won’t work here ❌
We want to be upfront, this role isn’t for everyone. Here’s what might make it a bad fit:
You want structure handed to you: This role is about building the structure, not following one. If you’re looking for a fully mapped-out CRM strategy, a big team to lean on, or a steady stream of briefs, this probably isn’t the right setup.
You prefer strategy over execution: Big-picture thinking is important but here, it only works if you can also get into the weeds. That means writing copy, building segments, setting up automations, QA-ing journeys, and owning end-to-end delivery. You’ll be doing most of this yourself — we’re a small team with limited data support and no data scientists.
You don’t like context switching: You’ll be juggling multiple user types, teams, channels, and countries. If switching between quick-turnaround campaigns and longer-term projects sounds exhausting rather than energising — this may not be the right environment.
You need lots of support to get started: You’ll have access to smart, collaborative colleagues but this role needs someone who can take the bull by the horns, figure things out, and drive things forward independently.
🤝 Our hiring process
We believe in moving fast and respecting your time. Our interview process is broken down into 3 stages, with all interviews in a given stage scheduled simultaneously. Once all interviews in a stage are complete we aim to get back to you within 36 hours.
Stage 1:
Recruiter call: to check you’re human, can communicate clearly, and cover some of the basics like compensation, benefits, and availability
Stage 2:
Intro call with me: I’ll be wanting to dig into your previous experience in lifecycle and understand how you think and approach and role and the problems you will face
Business context interview: You’ll speak with a senior leader from our UK or US team to explore your understanding of collaboration and lifecycle marketing in a two-sided marketplace and how you'd approach our challenges.
Stage 3:
Task Interview: I’ll send over a short CRM/lifecycle-focused task for you to complete at home. You’ll then talk it through with me and one of our team leads, explaining your thinking and approach.
Leadership meet: You’ll meet one of the C-Suite and discuss the vision and impact we can have with lifecycle at Zen
🎁 Perks & benefits
Work that you want to talk about
Ownership in the company
25+ days of holiday (increases with tenure)
On-site gym, showers, bike parking & café at our Central London office
Electric car & Cycle to Work schemes
Coaching, life insurance & health insurance
Fun-loving, mission-driven team
Interested? Let’s go! 🚀
If you read all of the above and are excited (maybe even a little nervous) about the opportunity and how we work then I recommend applying now! If you skipped or skimmed the above, feel free to apply anyway but you’re missing a bunch of useful information that could streamline the process for you 😉
Top Skills
Customer.Io
Mixpanel
SQL
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