Executive Head: Brand and Marketing

Purpose of the role

• The Executive Head: Brand & Marketing is responsible for shaping and driving Santam’s enterprise-wide marketing, brand, and customer strategy to support sustainable growth, competitive differentiation, and market leadership.
• This role blends commercial acumen, brand leadership, customer insight, and digital innovation across personal, commercial, specialist, agriculture and partnership segments in short-term insurance

Key Accountabilities

Enterprise Marketing & Brand Strategy:

• Define and execute the integrated marketing and brand strategy aligned to Santam’s growth ambitions and channel strategy
• Build a distinctive, trusted, and customer-centric brand across all markets and geographies
• Ensure consistent brand positioning across Santam, MiWay, and specialist businesses in line with the group strategy and operating model

Customer & Market Insight:

• Lead customer segmentation, insights, and analytics to inform business strategy
• Drive a deep understanding of evolving customer needs, behaviours, and market trends
• Translate insights into actionable strategies that improve acquisition, retention, and lifetime value

Commercial Growth & Distribution Enablement:

Partner with business units (Broker, Client, Partner Solutions, Direct) to:

• Strengthen value propositions
• Enable cross-sell and up-sell opportunities
• Enhance partner ecosystem positioning (B2B2C focus)
• Drive measurable marketing ROI linked to revenue and growth outcomes

Digital & Data-Driven Marketing:

• Lead digital transformation across marketing, including: Performance marketing; Martech stack optimisation; Personalisation and customer journeys
• Leverage data and AI to improve targeting, engagement, and conversion

Customer Experience & Brand Experience:

• Partner with Client Experience and business teams to deliver seamless, consistent customer journeys
• Ensure brand promise is translated into tangible customer experiences

Leadership & Capability Building:

• Build and lead a high-performing, future-fit marketing and brand function
• Drive capability in: Digital marketing; Data and insights; Commercial marketing
• Foster a culture aligned to Santam values and Leadership manifesto (Live, Lead, Serve)

Key Measures of Success

• Brand strength, experience and reputation metrics (NPS, awareness, trust)
• Brand experience across every colleague touchpoint (eNPS)
• Drive a growth and customer obsession through shared capability marketing engine
• Customer growth, retention, and share of wallet
• Marketing ROI and contribution to revenue growth
• Digital performance (conversion rates, engagement, cost per acquisition)
• A world class marketing capability driving Partner/channel growth and effectiveness

Qualifications and Experience

• Relevant postgraduate qualification (MBA advantageous)
• 15+ years’ experience in senior marketing leadership roles as well as managing a group marketing function
• Proven track record in: Complex, multi-channel organisations; Financial services / insurance (or related industry); Driving commercial outcomes through marketing
• Strong experience in digital, data analytics, and customer-led strategy

Key Competencies & Skills

• Strategic leadership – shapes enterprise-wide direction
• Commercial acumen – links marketing to revenue and growth
• Customer centricity – deep understanding of client needs
• Influence & stakeholder management – operates at Exco level
• Innovation and Growth mindset – embraces digital and new ways of working
• Execution excellence – delivers measurable impact
• Collaboration – drives performance in collaboration with Santam and Sanlam group of companies
• Strategic Marketing & Brand Leadership - Proven capability to build, lead, and continuously evolve a high-performing, future-fit marketing and brand function aligned to business strategy and market shifts.