Head of Content & GEO

About Zyphe

Zyphe is the privacy-first KYC platform built around decentralised PII storage, NFC chip read, two-step liveness, and an audit trail that satisfies AMLA per-decision defensibility. We just shipped native Model Context Protocol support so compliance teams can operate the platform through their AI assistant.

We are early, focused, and shipping. Real customers, real revenue, an active fundraise with a committed lead. The next twelve months are when category leadership in the AI era gets decided, and the content that wins compliance buyer queries on Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity is the wedge that decides it.

About the role

Zyphe is hiring its Head of Content & GEO to own how the market, and now the AI models that mediate the market, understand what we do. You are the first dedicated content hire. The ~50-piece cluster you inherit was built fast and well. The path from here to "category-defining content brand in privacy-first KYC" runs through whoever takes this seat.

You report to the CEO and work alongside the CRO on every brief that ships. No content-marketing-director chain of approvals. The two people who decide the company strategy are the two people who read your drafts. Decisions made fast; quality bar set high.

If "content calendar and blog refresh" is the ceiling of what you want to own, this is not the role. If owning the search and AI-citation surface for a regulated-industry company, building the team behind you, and earning the right to be Head of Search and AI Visibility in 18 months is the ceiling, read on.

Responsibilities

• Month 1, audit and instrumentation. Wire up Google Search Console, GA4, HubSpot, and Ahrefs (the latter via the MCP we just shipped to the workflow) so every brief is informed by real data. Audit the existing ~50-piece cluster against the Zyphe content skill (em-dashes, schema completeness, key highlights, canonical URLs, og:image). Generate a remediation list ranked by impact. Identify the 5-10 pieces positioned to break onto page 1 of Google or into AI Overviews with a moderate refresh.
• Month 2-3, refresh and remediate. Execute the remediation list. Refresh the striking-distance pieces. Standardise schema and metadata across the cluster. Set up AI-citation baseline monitoring (Ahrefs Brand Radar) and start tracking which competitor pages get cited for our target queries. Establish the weekly content-and-search briefing with the CEO and CRO.
• Month 4-6, production at velocity. Ship 6-8 new high-leverage pieces per quarter, briefed from real GSC and Ahrefs data, edited to the Zyphe skill standard, mirrored in LinkedIn posts (CEO and CRO voices). Build the "Zyphe vs [competitor]" comparison cluster (Sumsub, Onfido, Persona, Veriff, Jumio), the highest-intent procurement queries we are currently underweight on. Stand up the AI-citation reporting cadence so we know quarter-over-quarter whether we are gaining or losing ground in Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity answers. Recommend the next hire: junior producer, designer, or freelance editor pool.
• Own positioning and narrative for content surfaces: the category story, messaging house, page-one pitch, written down, defended, kept current.
• Evolve and enforce the Zyphe brand voice across every surface.
• Partner with the CEO on investor-facing narrative, deck, data room, next round.

You may be a good fit if you

• Have editorial chops at a publication-grade standard , you edited or led content at a B2B SaaS, fintech, or trade publication where copy quality was a competitive moat (Stripe, Linear, Vanta, Ramp, Wise, MoneyLion, FT Sifted, The Information, Sifted, The Block, CoinDesk Indices, or similar). You can spot AI-generated mush from twenty feet, and you can rewrite it into something a senior MLRO would actually quote.
• Have search-data fluency . You can pull and read GSC like a dashboard. You know the difference between an impression and a click and a position-8 striking-distance keyword. You have used Ahrefs or Semrush as a daily tool, not a once-a-quarter audit. You have run content-gap analysis against named competitors and acted on the output. If you do not know what "GEO" or "AEO" means as a discipline today, you have at least been reading carefully about AI Overviews and have an opinion on how it changes content strategy.
• Have AI-tooling fluency without AI-tooling worship . You use Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini as a daily drafting tool. You have opinions on which model writes better for which use case. You have tried MCP, plugins, custom GPTs, or similar. You are not afraid of AI replacing you; you are afraid of editors who do not use AI getting replaced. You have strong taste about when AI output is good enough and when it is not, and you are willing to scrap a draft that scores 90/100 on rubric but reads hollow.
• Are domain-aligned, or aggressively domain-curious . You have worked in regtech, fintech, identity/KYC, compliance tech, AML tooling, or adjacent verticals (banking-as-a-service, crypto compliance, payment infrastructure), OR you have demonstrated that you can ramp into a technical domain in 3-6 weeks and write at depth. Operator-grade content for a compliance audience cannot be faked.
• Have operator-grade voice . You write like a founder, not like a marketer. Short sentences. Specific claims. Evenhanded analysis. No buzzwords. No "in today's rapidly evolving landscape" openers. We can teach the technical content; we cannot teach taste.
• Have editorial conviction without ego . You hold opinions firmly, but you update when the data contradicts the opinion. A SERP that consistently rewards a different structure than the one you prefer should move you, not annoy you.
• Are comfortable working directly with the founder . You can push back when the founder is wrong and take direction when the founder is right. No diplomatic dance.
• Have high agency and ambiguity tolerance . The role does not come with a 12-month editorial calendar handed down from a marketing director. It comes with the cluster as it stands today, the GSC and Ahrefs data once connected, and the implicit pressure to compound those into ranked, cited, demo-converting content.
• Have ruthless prioritisation . You keep asking "what does this piece do for demo conversion or for AI citation in our target queries?" and you kill projects that do not answer cleanly.
• Practice honesty over polish . You tell the team when a piece is bad before publishing it. You tell the founder when a campaign idea is wrong before it runs. You tell yourself when your own draft is not working.

Strong candidates may also have experience with

• Writing for regulated audiences (auditors, MLROs, compliance officers, lawyers).
• A compliance product launch or repositioning.
• Working knowledge of structured data and schema (JSON-LD, Schema.org, OpenGraph) at the spec level.
• A public portfolio (LinkedIn newsletter, Substack, personal blog, contributions to fintech publications) where you can hold a voice across 6+ months of output.
• An MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue, ChatGPT custom GPTs) for daily research and drafting.
• Familiarity with Reddit, Hacker News, and niche forums where compliance professionals actually talk (r/fintech, r/cybersecurity, r/CompliantCrypto, FATF working-group transcripts, ICO consultation responses).
• Italian, German, or French for cross-market content work.
• Genuine curiosity for AML, KYC, MiCA, FCA SMCR, AMLA, and FATF Recommendations.

What you get

• Founding content team seat. You are the first dedicated content hire at Zyphe.
• Direct line to the CEO and CRO. No layers, no committee.
• Real tooling budget. Ahrefs, Supermetrics, Similarweb, AirOps, an AI-citation monitor of your choice, Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor / Continue at the highest plan tier. We do not penny-pinch the data layer.
• The Zyphe content skill as a starting point. A fully documented editorial standard you inherit, then improve within weeks of joining.
• Cap table participation at the level appropriate for a senior individual contributor with leadership trajectory.

What we do not offer

• Generic "content marketing" career framing. If you want to be a CMO in three years, this is not the fast lane. It is the fast lane to "Head of Search and AI Visibility for a compliance company that wins in the AI era."
• Hand-holding through ramp. We will support you, but a senior hire is expected to find their feet within 6-8 weeks.
• Excuses about scope. You build the calendar. You build the strategy. You build the team if and when the work justifies it.

How to apply

Send the following to View email address on click.appcast.io (or DM Michelangelo on LinkedIn,

1. Your CV or LinkedIn profile.
2. A short brief (1 page max). Pick any one of the existing Zyphe blog pieces at and tell us what you would change about it, why, and what data would verify your hypothesis. Editorial taste and data-driven thinking, not a polished essay.
3. One piece of writing you have published anywhere that you are still proud of, plus one sentence on why.
4. The query you most want to win for Zyphe in the next 12 months. A real Google query a compliance buyer might type. Tell us why this query, and what kind of content would win it.

We will read every application personally. Process: 30-minute call with the CRO, 60-minute editorial test (we send you a real brief, 72-hour turnaround, 1,000-word draft), 60-minute call with the CEO, reference checks, offer. Two weeks from first call to offer for the right candidate.

Annual salary

Competitive, commensurate with experience. Equity included, sized to the founding nature of the seat.

Logistics

Location: Hybrid Milano or remote within CET ±3 hours. Hybrid policy: Quarterly on-site weeks; we pay for the travel. Visa sponsorship: Not available at this time.

Education

We require at least a Bachelor's degree in a related field, or equivalent professional experience.