Head of Marketing

Head of Marketing

Caliwater · Los Angeles, CA (remote considered) · Full-time

Caliwater is a cactus water brand founded by Oliver Trevena and Vanessa Hudgens, in national distribution across grocery, mass and ecommerce, and growing fast. We have authentic founder-led awareness and real consumer pull, the things most emerging brands never get, and the business is scaling quickly around them.

We are looking for the right marketing partner: someone who can take the founders' vision, create a holistic plan around it, and operationalize that plan with best-in-class execution. Building that system and running it is the job.

This is a senior leadership role reporting to the CEO. It carries the same revenue accountability as the rest of the leadership team, top and bottom line, and it is measured first on velocity, the rate of sale in the doors we already have. You will lead the commercial marketing lead and the team you design and build, work directly with the founders, with Sales on retail and field execution, and with our partner agencies. Los Angeles preferred, remote considered, with travel for activations, field events, trade shows and founder priorities.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

Brand platform and the plan

• Define and codify the brand platform. Work with the founders to articulate what Caliwater stands for, who it is for and what it promises, then hold the whole company to it.
• Build the annual plan and the calendar. Campaigns, content, launches, activations and always-on, sequenced against the commercial calendar.
• Own the marketing budget and put it behind what demonstrably moves consumers, with the measurement to prove it.

Velocity and consumer growth

• Own velocity. Accountable for rate of sale, units per store per week, in the distribution we already have. Winning the door is Sales' job. Making it turn is Marketing's. You will be in buyer meetings and behind the selling effort.
• Drive the consumer funnel. Awareness, trial, repeat and affinity, and know which lever is moving and which is not.
• Own the digital surface. Website and DTC ecommerce, social media, owned email and SMS, content and conversion, and the consumer data behind it.
• Carry the revenue number with the leadership team, top and bottom line, and bring the marketing view to price, pack and promotion decisions.

Audacious ideas, scrappy execution

• Go after the moment. Find the culturally timed idea that earns attention we could never buy, and know a real moment from a stunt.
• Deliver the rest of it too. Sampling, field and events, retailtainment, shopper, search, reviews and retail media. This is the work that turns awareness into trial and trial into repeat.
• Own PR and earned media. Strategy and press relationships, whether run through the agency, alongside the founders, or led directly. Build partnerships and collaborations that compound rather than start over, and stop what is not working.

Working with the founders

• Bring the vision to life. Oliver and Vanessa are Caliwater's most powerful brand advantage. The work of this role is translating their instincts, relationships and cultural reach into a plan, a calendar and measurable growth.
• Be a true partner to them. They are generous brand stewards who want smart, strategic people around them: people who work hard and fight for results that stand above anyone else in the category. Bring a clear point of view, argue for it, and own the outcome.
• Find the way to yes. This role will be asked for more than the budget and the calendar can obviously carry. That comes with a brand the founders have built. Come back with the version that delivers the ambition rather than the version that shrinks it, and say plainly what a yes costs and what it displaces.
• Run founder-led activation, VIP, gifting and seeding as real marketing channels: briefed, resourced, measured and connected to the plan.

Organization and team

• Rebuild the marketing team. Design the function that supports the business today and scales with it: the roles, the split between employees and agencies, and the order they are added. Recommend the structure and its budget within 90 days.
• Lead the commercial marketing function: retailer selling materials, shopper and trade marketing, and the commercial half of the plan.
• Manage agencies and outside specialists to briefs and outcomes.
• Start hands-on. The talent and VIP list, sample and gifting programs, event and trade show logistics and the ambassador roster sit with this role until the team is built.

HOW WE WORK

AI-first is a condition of the role. Reach and output come from tooling rather than headcount. We expect fluency in prompting and context, judgment about where AI output is good enough and where it is not, and AI built into the workflow rather than added afterward. This role sets that standard for the function.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• Senior brand and consumer marketing leadership. 10 or more years in consumer marketing, at least three of them leading a function, at a small or emerging CPG or beverage brand. Has built a platform and an annual plan and executed it, rather than inheriting one already running.
• Has built the function, not just the plan. Decided what to hire, what to give an agency, and in what order.
• Outsized reach on what remains after trade spend. Earned media, partnerships, culturally timed ideas and the fundamentals underneath, delivered with a few people and a strong toolset rather than a department. Not being at home in that is the most common reason leaders from larger brands do not work out here.
• Fluent in the funnel and its measurement. Velocity and repeat rather than impressions, with hands-on command of website, owned channels and analytics.
• Has worked directly for a founder or celebrity principal. Understands the discretion it takes, and finds real satisfaction in making someone else's vision land.
• Comes with a point of view and defends it. Brings a recommendation rather than a menu, argues it on the merits, and changes position on evidence rather than seniority.
• No surprises. Raises problems, slippage and bad news early and in full.

Caliwater is an equal opportunity employer. We make hiring decisions on qualifications and merit, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic.