Marketing Manager

Marketing Manager

CODED — The First Tech & AI Academy in the Arab World

About CODED

CODED is the first tech and AI academy in the Arab world, and the region's go-to place for technology and AI education. We build real technical capability — software engineering, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, and emerging technologies — across individuals, youth, and enterprises.

What we are building is talent density. Not headcount. Not volume. A concentrated pool of genuinely exceptional people, inside CODED and across the market we serve.

We only aspire to work with people who are excellent at what they do, and who raise the standard of everyone around them.

The Role: Marketing Manager

The Marketing Manager owns customer acquisition at CODED.

Not campaigns. Not content. Not impressions. The acquisition outcome itself — across every segment we serve: individuals, youth, and enterprise.

That ownership runs the full funnel, from first impression to enrolled student. Which means this role owns both sides of it: the marketing engine that creates demand, and the admissions team that converts it.

This is a data-driven management role. The person here does not wait for a bad month to happen and then explain it. They see it coming.

Four domains:

1. Acquisition Ownership
2. Data, Forecasting & Risk
3. Campaign Mandates, Budget & Execution
4. People Management & Resourcing

I. Acquisition Ownership (Core Domain)

• Own the customer acquisition target across all segments
• Break the target down into segment-level, channel-level, and monthly plans
• Own the full funnel: awareness → inquiry → advisory conversation → enrolment
• Monitor funnel health weekly — volume, lead quality, conversion rate, cost per acquisition, time to close
• Diagnose where the funnel leaks and fix it, whether the leak sits in the message, the media, or the conversation
• Report acquisition performance to leadership with honest numbers and a clear corrective plan

Objective: the number is met, and leadership always knows exactly where it stands.

II. Data, Forecasting & Risk

• Build and maintain an admissions forecast by segment, programme, and intake
• Analyse trends across seasons, channels, segments, and cohorts — and act on what the data says, not on instinct
• Foresee drops in admissions before they happen and raise them early with a plan attached
• Maintain backup plans for every intake: what we do if week three is 30% behind, and what it costs
• Track leading indicators, not just outcomes — inquiry velocity, response time, advisory-to-enrolment ratio, channel decay
• Benchmark against previous intakes and against the market
• Turn analysis into decisions: shift spend, change message, add capacity, or escalate

Objective: no surprises. Problems are surfaced with a solution, weeks before they hit the number.

III. Campaign Mandates, Budget & Execution

• Set the mandate for every campaign: objective, segment, message, budget, timeline, success metric
• Own the marketing budget — allocate it across segments and channels, pace it through the period, and defend every dinar with a return
• Hand clear briefs to the Marketing Executives and brand team, then follow up on execution rigorously
• Ensure segment-level messaging is accurate and differentiated (a 17-year-old, a career switcher, and an HR director are not the same buyer)
• Protect brand voice and positioning across every touchpoint
• Kill what is not working quickly, and reallocate to what is

Objective: campaigns ship on time, on message, and on budget — against a business goal, not a content calendar.

IV. People Management & Resourcing

• Directly manage the marketing team and the admissions and sales team
• Set individual targets, KPIs, and a weekly operating rhythm for each team member
• Coach the admissions team on call quality, advisory skill, and conversion technique
• Run pipeline reviews and enforce follow-up discipline
• Work with HR to source flexible capacity — part-time sales and admissions staff for peak intake, brand officers, designers, videographers, and freelancers — and scale the team up and down with the calendar
• Develop people: this role builds marketers and closers, it does not do their work for them

Objective: a team sized correctly for the season, hitting its numbers without the manager doing the work.

Why This Role Is Critical

Today, marketing and admissions operate as two functions sharing one outcome with no single owner. The result is predictable: campaigns generate leads nobody closes, and the admissions team fields inquiries nobody shaped.

This role puts one person in charge of the entire acquisition outcome.

Without it:

• Spend grows and conversion does not.
• Admissions drops get discovered after the intake closes.
• Lead quality is nobody's problem.
• Brand and sales tell different stories.
• Leadership becomes the default funnel manager.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years in marketing with genuine ownership of a revenue or acquisition target — not campaign delivery alone
• Strongly data-driven: builds forecasts, reads trends, and manages by numbers rather than by opinion
• Proven budget ownership — has allocated, paced, and defended real spend
• Proven people management, ideally including a sales or admissions function
• Experience scaling a team with seasonal demand using part-time and freelance capacity
• Strong command of funnel mechanics, CRM discipline, and conversion analytics
• Real marketing craft: positioning, messaging, and campaign thinking — not media buying alone
• Comfortable directing and challenging performance-marketing specialists
• Genuinely comfortable with AI tools — our marketing team runs on them
• Fluent Arabic and English; the Kuwaiti buyer is bilingual
• Education, EdTech, or high-consideration B2C/B2B sales background is a strong advantage

This is a high-accountability role for someone who wants to own an outcome, not a channel.