Marketing and Partnerships Director - Engine by Starling

Engine by Starling was born out of Starling: the UK’s first and leading digital bank. Today, Starling delivers intuitive, customer-centric tools to help over 4.6 million people and small businesses to be ‘good with money’. Engine is a cloud-native, bank-built SaaS platform powering banks worldwide with modern digital features and efficient back-office processes. Engine follows five guiding principles: listen, keep it simple, do the right thing, own it, and aim for greatness. As a rapidly-growing organisation launched in 2022, we embrace change and the reimagination of processes, with a culture of ownership and collaboration.

Hybrid Working

Engine is headquartered in London, with offices in Dublin, Sydney, Dubai, Toronto and New York. This role will be based in London. We have a hybrid approach to working at Engine — our preference is that you’re located within a commutable distance of London (Liverpool Street) to enable in-person collaboration and interaction with your team.

About the Role

Engine by Starling, the complete, cloud-native banking platform developed and proven by Starling Bank in the UK, is seeking an experienced Marketing and Partnerships Director to lead our global marketing function as we enter our next phase of growth. You will be the architect of Engine’s global positioning and reputation, translating our best-in-class digital banking blueprint into a compelling proposition for financial institutions around the world.

Reporting into the executive team, you will own the global marketing strategy across brand, digital, communications and demand-driving activity. You will lead a central marketing strategy and operations team and design/content studio while building and overseeing regional marketing capability in priority markets including the US, Europe, Middle East and ANZ.

This is a high-impact role for a senior marketing leader who thrives in fast-moving, scaling environments and can operate seamlessly across brand building, digital channels, communications, marketing and events and close collaboration with commercial and sales leadership.

Global Marketing Strategy and Leadership

• Develop and execute a clear global marketing strategy aligned to Engine’s commercial goals and long-term growth ambitions.
• Evolve Engine’s positioning, mission and purpose, ensuring we are the undisputed first choice for transformation programmes.
• Lead and develop a high-performing central marketing team covering marketing operations, brand, digital, content and design.
• Build and scale regional marketing teams in priority markets, ensuring consistency of brand and messaging while enabling local market impact.

Strategic Partnerships & Co-Marketing

• Ecosystem Marketing: Develop and execute joint marketing strategies with global system integrators (GSIs), technology alliance partners, and consultancy firms to drive indirect pipeline.
• Partner Enablement: Create comprehensive marketing toolkits, collateral, and joint value propositions to enable partners to effectively pitch Engine by Starling to their financial institution clients.
• Joint Demand Generation: Architect and execute co-funded account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns and bespoke roundtables alongside strategic partners targeting Tier 1 and Tier 2 banks.

Brand, Positioning and Communications

• Own Engine’s brand strategy, ensuring a strong, differentiated position in the core banking SaaS market. Maintain standards of excellence and ensure the Engine brand commands respect from C-suite stakeholders at banks.
• Ensure effective corporate communications, PR and thought leadership activity, working closely with the Starling Group Corporate Affairs team and external agencies as needed.
• Act as a senior brand guardian, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints and channels.

Digital, Demand and Growth

• Oversee the digital ecosystem from the website and targeted high-intent SEO, to social through LinkedIn and flagship events, measuring all activity for efficiency and effectiveness.
• Partner closely with commercial and sales leadership to support pipeline generation, build account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns targeting the right financial institutions.
• Develop engagement with analysts to position Engine as a trusted technology leader.
• Use data and insight to continuously optimise performance and engagement. Track results and provide leadership with clear ROI.

Collaboration and Influence

• Work closely with Product, Sales, Commercial and Executive teams to ensure marketing supports product strategy and go-to-market priorities.
• Serve as a senior marketing voice internally, influencing decision-making and representing marketing at executive level.
• Manage external partners and agencies to deliver high-quality, scalable output.

Requirements

• 10+ years’ experience in senior marketing roles, ideally within B2B SaaS, core banking, digital banking or fintech environments.
• Strong background across marketing, events and partnerships with the ability to balance brand and performance.
• Proven track record of building and executing partner marketing programs with GSIs, consulting firms, or major cloud providers (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud).
• Proven experience leading and scaling teams in fast-growth, international businesses.
• Demonstrated success building and managing global marketing strategies across multiple regions.
• Deep understanding of digital marketing channels and modern marketing operations.
• Commercially astute, with a track record of close collaboration with sales and revenue teams.
• Confident leader with excellent stakeholder management, communication and storytelling skills.

Interview process

Interviewing is a two-way process and we want you to have time to get to know us as much as we are getting to know you. Our interviews are conversational; come with questions and be curious. Typical steps include:

• Initial video interview with Engine’s Chief Commercial Officer (45 minutes)
• Deeper interview with members of the Starling Marketing team including the CMO (60 minutes)
• Final interview with Engine’s CEO (45 minutes)

Benefits

• 33 days holiday (including public holidays)
• Birthday holiday entitlement
• Annual leave increases with length of service; buy/sell up to five extra days
• 16 hours paid volunteering time per year
• Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
• Life insurance at 4x salary & group income protection
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth, mental health support and cancer care; partner discounts
• Generous family-friendly policies
• Refer a friend incentives
• Perkbox membership with retail discounts and wellbeing platform
• Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and EV leasing initiatives

You may be put off applying for a role because you don’t tick every box. We’re open to discussion about flexible working where possible. Starling is an equal opportunity employer and we foster diversity and inclusion. By submitting your application you consent to Starling collecting and processing your personal data for recruiting purposes in line with our Privacy Notice.

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