Fractional CMO Leadership for UK
B2B Businesses.

When marketing activity is high but commercial impact is unclear, the issue is rarely effort. It’s leadership. VCMO embeds senior, board-level marketing leadership into growing organisations — aligning strategy, sales, and execution so your marketing investment translates into measurable pipeline and revenue outcomes.

VCMO is built for CEOs, founders and investors who want marketing to perform like a commercial function — not a creative department.

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Marketing leaders from big brands...

your challenge

If Your Marketing Feels Busy but Underperforming, You’re Not Alone...

Most B2B businesses don’t fail because they lack ideas, tools, or channels.

They fail because marketing is being run without senior leadership.

That creates predictable symptoms:

  • Marketing spend increases, but revenue doesn’t follow
  • Sales and marketing drift into separate agendas
  • Campaigns happen, but positioning remains unclear
  • Internal teams become reactive, fragmented, and overloaded
  • Agencies deliver activity, but nobody owns outcomes
  • Reporting exists, but confidence doesn’t

At a certain stage of growth, the question isn’t “What should we do next?”
It’s “Who is leading this function commercially?”

OUR SOLUTION

VCMO Provides the Strategic Marketing Leadership Most Businesses Only Hire Too Late

We operate as embedded Fractional CMOs — part-time, senior marketing leaders who join your business to build clarity, direction and commercial momentum.

❌ Not consultants who deliver decks.
❌ Not agencies that execute disconnected tactics.
❌ Not freelancers operating without authority.

We take accountability for strategy, governance, prioritisation and performance — so marketing becomes a predictable growth engine.

WHAT YOU GET

What Fractional CMO Leadership looks like in practice

VCMO delivers more than “advice”. We provide the operating structure that makes marketing work.

You gain:

  • Strategic Direction - Clear positioning, proposition, market focus, and go-to-market strategy.
  • Commercial Alignment - Sales and marketing operating under one growth agenda, with shared targets and a common language.
  • Marketing Governance - A repeatable rhythm of planning, reporting, decision-making and prioritisation.
  • Execution Oversight - Campaigns, agencies and internal teams aligned to strategy — with performance tracked properly.
  • Team Leadership - Confidence, capability and accountability inside the marketing function.
  • Investor-Grade Reporting - Dashboards and metrics that stand up to board scrutiny.
WHO THIS IS FOR

Who Typically Engages VCMO

VCMO supports ambitious B2B organisations where growth has outpaced marketing leadership.

Our clients typically include:

  • Founder-led businesses scaling beyond £2m revenue
  • Marketing teams that need senior strategic direction
  • PE-backed companies under pressure to accelerate growth
  • Leadership teams preparing for funding, exit or transformation
  • Businesses entering new markets, launching new offers, or repositioning

If your business has reached the point where marketing decisions are too important to delegate, VCMO is designed for you.

HOW LEADERSHIP SHOWS UP

How Our Marketing Leadership Is Delivered

VCMO offers multiple engagement routes depending on your stage and urgency.
Each pathway is designed to help leadership teams make high-confidence decisions, faster.

Fractional CMO Retainers

Embedded leadership over 6+ months. Ideal when you need a strategic marketing lead who can drive change, align teams, and build a growth engine.

Marketing Advisory Workshops

Fast, high-impact strategic sessions to resolve specific problems: positioning, go-to-market, sales alignment, planning, pricing, messaging, or team structure.

Marketing Performance Audit

Independent assessment of your marketing function, strategy, and performance — designed to identify gaps, risks, and immediate priorities.

Private Equity Investor Due Diligence

Marketing assessment and growth risk analysis for PE firms, investors and operating partners.

the change we bring

The Outcomes Our Clients Receive

VCMO is not about marketing “activity”. It’s about commercial outcomes.

Clients typically engage us to achieve:

✔️ A clear go-to-market strategy and positioning

✔️ Higher-quality pipeline generation and conversion

✔️ Stronger revenue attribution and performance reporting

✔️ Faster execution through better prioritisation

✔️ Reduced wasted spend on misaligned activity

✔️ Better alignment between leadership, sales and marketing

✔️ A marketing function that becomes predictable, repeatable and scalable

In short: We help businesses stop guessing, start leading, and build marketing that performs.

Our project was to create a top-level marketing strategy which, once built, we could drive forward ourselves. And I can honestly say the work has been transformational for Yellowtail. After each workshop with VCMO, both Dennis Hall and I would be amazed at how much we'd achieved. We worked hard! But the results are worth it.

Sarah Steele
Operations Director, Yellowtail Financial Planning
Read the Case Study

Shout out to Paul Mills who bravely took on running a positioning workshop with us yesterday. Is there anything harder than doing the thing your client does for others for them?! Great work. Really thought provoking, and so important to have facilitated by someone with an external perspective!

Bryony Thomas
CEO, watertight business thinking

Paul is a professional strategic marketeer who is able to apply his expertise with marketing budgets large and small. The commercial impact of Shaw & Co's rebrand, which was initiated, designed and implemented by Paul, has been to differentiate us positively in a sector where few have succeeded. He delivers what he promises, on time and on/under budget, to a high quality. Paul made a positive impact on our business that will last.

Rod Leefe
chair, shaw & co

VCMO's audit brought clarity to a complex set of challenges. They cut through the noise and delivered a clear, prioritised roadmap that we could act on immediately. Their ability to engage across teams and translate insight into action was exactly what we needed.

Dr. Ross Burn
Co-founder, Catsci limited  
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Lydia possesses a deep understanding of marketing strategies and has consistently delivered exceptional results. Her ability to analyse market trends, create engaging campaigns, and drive customer acquisition is truly impressive. Her dedication, attention to detail, and strong communication skills make her an invaluable asset to any organisation. I cannot recommend Lydia enough for her expertise, professionalism, and exceptional work ethic.

Alan Leckey
Business Consultant, CCO - the Collaboration Company  

Paul Mills wasn't just an outsourced marketing leader — he was a mentor. His support helped me enhance my technical marketing skills and shape a more strategic mindset, as well as build my  confidence with senior leadership and deliver higher-impact work. He is dependable and skillful, and his guidance has made me feel more capable and prepared for future challenges.

Caitlin Daniels
marketing manager, catsci limited
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VCMO brings knowledge, insight and practical experience to the table, but also something else, which is quite rare, the unwavering commitment to finishing the job without compromising on the quality of the output. Their work for Yellowtail has been exemplary and we're seeing the results already.

Dennis Hall
founder, yellowtail financial planning

Ruth brought great experience and insight to my firm over many years. Her considered and thoughtful approach to problem solving are a real strength and her experience of marketing and business development in the legal sector was invaluable.

Gavin Tyler
Managing Partner, Cripps

VCMO helped us think beyond our capabilities and reframe how we communicate the true value of what we do. Paul's workshop unlocked fresh ideas resulting in a more strategic approach to our content plan and go-to-market materials. The quality of the output and power of the messaging is really impressive.

Peter Ridgway
Business Development Director, Reach Separations
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VCMO has been instrumental in reshaping how we approach marketing at Lucent. Their strategic clarity, attention to detail, and ability to deliver at pace have been exceptional. Paul's embedded himself seamlessly into the team and quickly earned trust — not just from me, but from our wider staff and partners. The website and content strategy he led have already started delivering results, and I now feel far more confident in how we grow the business over the coming years.

Steven Rowe
Founder - Lucent Financial Planning
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VCMO helped me find the words and structure to communicate what I do — and who I do it for — in a way that finally connects. I’ve had more inbound enquiries since the website relaunch than in the previous two years.

Lee Spencer
aka The rowing marine
Read the Case Study
our credentials

A Network of Senior Chartered
Marketing Leaders

VCMO is built around experienced CMOs who have led marketing functions through growth,
transformation and investor scrutiny.

You don’t just gain a marketing expert. You gain strategic leadership.

Our Fractional CMOs are:

Chartered Marketers

We're all Chartered Marketers (CIM), upholding the highest professional standards across the marketing industry.

SOSTAC® Planners

We're all SOSTAC® Certified Planners ensuring every marketing decision is measured against growth velocity, revenue impact, risk & enterprise value.

Board Operators

We operate inside your board or senior leadership team — we don't commentate from the sidelines.

Flexible Engagement

Our services are designed to be scaled up or down as your business context evolves over time.

free  assessment

Not Sure Whether You Need a Fractional CMO?

Most leadership teams know something isn’t working — but they’re not sure what’s missing.

We built a simple diagnostic to help you assess whether your marketing function has the leadership, structure and governance needed to deliver growth.

Take the 5-Minute Marketing Capability Assessment
(Instant results + recommendations + complimentary review session)

What Happens Next?

Ready to Make Marketing Commercially Accountable?

If your business has outgrown fragmented marketing, VCMO can help you build the structure, strategy and leadership required for sustainable growth.

Call us Today on 0331 630 9395

Book a no-obligation discovery call and we’ll explore:

✅ Where marketing is currently underperforming
✅ What leadership gaps are holding growth back
✅ What an embedded Fractional CMO engagement would look like
✅ Whether VCMO is the right fit

If we are the wrong fit, we will tell you.

FAQ’s

Let us transform your marketing and provide the leadership you’ve been missing.

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