Chief Marketing Officer

Job Description

About Us:
At Near, we help top talent in Latin America find remote roles with US companies. Our mission is to create better lives by fostering a remote work culture that transcends borders.

About Our Client:
Our client is the global leader in culinary travel experiences. Founded in 2013, the company runs food and cultural walking tours in more than 135 cities around the world and has over 135,000 five-star reviews. It works with a portfolio of several tour brands and welcomes hundreds of thousands of travelers every year. It is a fast-growing, profitable, investor-backed company. It has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the UK and adds around 30 new cities every year. The team is fully remote and spread across Europe, the Americas and beyond. Its mission is to share authentic local food culture while supporting small, family-run businesses.

About the Role:
Join our client on their mission to bring travelers closer to the real food culture of the world's best cities. We are looking for a Head of Marketing / Director of Marketing to own the marketing function across the company's portfolio of brands.

This is a hands-on executive role, not an oversight one. You will report directly to the co-founders and work closely with finance and tour operations. You will build the strategy and also do the work: run the ad accounts, work in Search Console, build your own reports in Looker Studio, and shape design and copy. You will market a product people love, with real photography, real stories and real food, to an audience that actually wants to hear from you. You will also get to join the tours yourself, because you cannot market something you have not tasted.

If you want full ownership of a marketing function at an exciting, profitable and fast-moving business with real scale, this role is for you.

Note: This is a remote, full-time contractor role. Candidates based in Brazil are preferred (Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo ideal), and candidates must be based in a city with access to an airport for occasional travel.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build the quarterly marketing plan and recommend priorities to the co-founders.
• Manage the marketing budget against the agreed plan, and own all marketing reporting, including the monthly performance review.
• Run paid search in-house. It is a material revenue channel, and you will be in the accounts yourself from week one.
• Manage paid social, display and retargeting campaigns, improving efficiency at the city and campaign level.
• Lead SEO across the brand portfolio (technical, content and local), as well as generative engine optimization (GEO) and visibility in AI assistants.
• Support performance on OTA and reseller channels (mainly Viator and GetYourGuide), working with the operations team, and run the affiliate program day to day.
• Own email marketing: campaign calendar, segmentation, deliverability and performance.
• Maintain brand positioning across the portfolio and run social media and influencer activity, including creator sourcing and campaign measurement.
• Own website copy and conversion rate optimization (CRO) testing.
• Launch the early-stage B2B line, starting with corporate events.

What We're Looking For:

• 8+ years of experience in digital marketing, with a track record of owning channels end to end rather than supporting them.
• Strong, current, hands-on paid search experience (Google Ads).
• Practical SEO experience covering technical, content and local SEO.
• Strong analytics skills with GA4, Google Search Console and Looker Studio, including building your own reports.
• Experience marketing to US and/or European consumers in a B2C environment.
• Comfortable working across many channels rather than specializing in one, and in a lean, fast-moving setup.
• A valid passport, or the ability to get one, and availability for occasional travel.
• Native or near-native English level (C2).

Nice to have:

• Background in travel, tourism, hospitality or experiences.
• Experience with OTAs or marketplace channels.
• Email marketing and lifecycle experience.
• Exposure to generative engine optimization or LLM visibility measurement.

Perks – What's in It for You?

• Competitive compensation in US dollars.
• Direct reporting line to the co-founders and full ownership of a global marketing function.
• Travel opportunities to experience the tours first-hand.
• Fun, food-focused and dynamic remote work environment.
• Career growth in a fast-growing, international company.