Head of Marketing: Founding Role

FrontierU · Full-time · Hybrid · Based in Florence for at least the next nine months
Expected start: December 2026 or January 2027
€75,000 annual base salary + €30,000 target annual equity grant

Help us rebuild the university

FrontierU is building an alternative to university for highly intelligent, ambitious young people who want to learn deeply, build companies, and pursue exceptional careers.

We’re bringing together personalised learning, Socrates (our AI tutor and mentor), a physical community, and connections to employers and investors. Our aim is to give members a faster, more affordable path to meaningful work and growth.

We’re looking for our first marketing leader to make that proposition compelling, reach the right people, and help bring our founding cohort together.

You’ll work directly with the founder and build marketing from the ground up. You’ll own the strategy, personally execute a substantial share of the work, and commission freelancers and specialists where they can deliver a better result.

The role

Your immediate mission is to build qualified demand for FrontierU and turn it into applications and enrolments ahead of our first campus launch.

Our growth strategy is organic. We will not run paid advertising. You’ll build through compelling content, launch campaigns, community relationships, campus outreach, partnerships, events, and referrals.

You’ll have a budget for production, freelancers, tools, and outreach. You’ll decide what to do yourself, what to commission, and where to focus our resources.

Before launch, you’ll help tell the story of what we’re building and why it matters. After launch, you’ll have access to the people, projects, learning, and daily life inside FrontierU. As the workload grows, you’ll help decide which capabilities to bring in-house and hire the right people.

What you’ll own

Positioning and messaging
Understand prospective members: their ambitions, frustrations, alternatives, and reasons for hesitating. Work with the founder to explain what FrontierU offers, who it is for, and why someone should choose it.

Organic launches and campaigns
Develop campaign ideas that people want to watch, discuss, share, and participate in. Own the concept, creative direction, distribution, timing, and execution, from the first brief through to follow-up.

Content and creative direction
Build a focused editorial approach and sustainable publishing rhythm. Turn founder conversations, product development, educational ideas, events, and member stories into strong content. Choose the formats and channels that deserve our attention.

Hands-on execution
Write copy, develop scripts, produce straightforward content, make basic landing-page updates, publish, conduct outreach, and measure results. Keep work moving without needing a separate specialist for every step.

Distribution and relationships
Build relationships with student communities, societies, founders, creators, and relevant organisations. Organise campus outreach, collaborations, events, and referral activity that reach people who could thrive at FrontierU.

Applications and conversion
Build and improve the journey from discovery to qualified application. Work with the founder and admissions team on follow-up and conversion to enrolment while preserving our admissions standards.

Freelancers and specialist partners
Find good collaborators, write clear briefs, manage budgets and deadlines, and give useful creative feedback. Commission specialist work when it improves quality, speed, or capacity, and remain accountable for the outcome.

Measurement and the future team
Track qualified interest, applications, conversion, and acquisition costs. Use the evidence to improve our approach and decide when to hire a creator, content lead, or other specialist.

What you bring

You have built successful organic launches

You have personally conceived and executed launches or campaigns that achieved substantial organic reach and converted attention into meaningful action.

You understand how the idea, creative work, distribution, timing, and participation fit together. You can explain your contribution, the starting audience and resources, and what happened after people saw the campaign.

We’re particularly interested in experience launching an unfamiliar product, programme, community, or organisation with limited resources.

You combine creative judgment with commercial discipline

You recognise a strong story, write clearly, and know how to make an unfamiliar proposition understandable and compelling.

You can judge scripts, video, design, and landing pages, give specific feedback, and protect the quality of the work. You also care about whether it reaches the right people and leads them to act.

You are a hands-on builder

You can take a campaign from an idea to launch. You have practical strengths in writing, publishing, outreach, straightforward content production, and basic marketing tools.

You know when doing something yourself is the best use of your time and when a specialist will deliver a better result. Advanced filmmaking or design skills are welcome, but strong editorial judgment and independent execution are essential.

You can build a team around the work

You have selected and managed freelancers, agencies, or collaborators. You can assess their work, set expectations, and keep projects moving.

As FrontierU grows, you’ll be able to identify the next hiring need, assess candidates, and develop the marketing function.

You learn quickly and take ownership

You’re comfortable choosing priorities with incomplete information, testing your assumptions, and changing direction when the evidence calls for it.

You use AI and automation where they improve speed or quality, while taking responsibility for the finished work.

Location and working arrangement

This is a hybrid role, combining remote work with regular in-person collaboration. You must be able to stay in Florence for at least the next nine months as we prepare for and launch the campus.

Fluent English is required; Italian is not. You must have the right to work in Italy without visa sponsorship.

Your first three months

Working with the founder, you will:

Develop a clear understanding of prospective members through direct conversations and existing evidence.
Establish positioning, campaign priorities, and a measurable route to our first cohort.
Launch focused organic campaigns and a consistent publishing rhythm.
Put application tracking and follow-up in place with the admissions team.
Build a dependable roster of creative collaborators.
Show what is generating qualified demand, what is not, and where we should invest next.

We’ll agree specific targets against the launch date, available budget, and starting position.

Why join

You’ll shape how FrontierU is understood from the beginning and help assemble its first community.

You’ll work directly with the founder, have substantial ownership over the marketing, and build the function as the company grows.

You’ll receive €75,000 in annual base salary, plus an annual equity grant with a target value of €30,000 at the time of grant. The valuation method, award size, vesting schedule, and any exercise costs will be specified in your offer.

Show us what you’ve built

Apply with a short explanation of why FrontierU interests you and examples of your strongest work.

For each launch or campaign, explain:

The objective, starting audience, budget, and team.
What you personally conceived, made, commissioned, or coordinated.
How you distributed it and what drove its reach.
The results, including applications, sign-ups, participation, or revenue where available.
What you learned and would do differently.

Distinguish organic reach from paid promotion. Include work you made yourself and work you directed, making your contribution clear.

We’d also like to hear about a campaign that fell short and how you responded.

We’re looking for strong judgment, original ideas, and evidence that you can turn them into results.

Head of Marketing