Chief Marketing Officer

Job Description

Location: Winchester / Manassas / Great Falls, Virginia (hybrid)
Type: Full-time, executive
Reports to and sits on Executive Team
Direct reports: Marketing staff, agencies, contractors, and freelancers as the function is built

The Opportunity

McCarthy & Akers, PLC is building a predictable, measurable go-to-market engine for its estate-planning practice across Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley.

We serve individuals and families making important decisions about their legacy, assets, and loved ones. Our goal is to double our revenue next year and then double it again to reach eight figures in annual gross revenue in the next 2 years.

We are hiring a hands-on Chief Marketing Officer to build the demand engine that makes that possible.

This is not a brand-only role, and it is not a role for someone who needs a large existing team, a mature data environment, or lengthy approval cycles. You will set the strategy and personally drive execution: build channels, improve conversion systems, manage partners and vendors, install clean attribution, and make decisions from data.

Mission of the Role

Build a predictable, profitable pipeline of highly qualified estate-planning consultations that converts into measurable marketing-sourced revenue, allowing the founding partners to exit day-to-day marketing decisions.

Primary Outcome Owned

Within 12 months, deliver the agreed annual target for marketing-sourced revenue while meeting agreed standards for:
• Highly qualified consultations
• Customer acquisition cost by channel
• Return on marketing spend
• Pipeline forecast accuracy
• Speed to lead
• Conversion from qualified consultation to signed engagement, in partnership with intake and attorneys

What You Will Own

GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY AND DEMAND GENERATION
• Build and own the annual go-to-market plan, channel strategy, forecast, and testing roadmap.
• Build, propose, and manage annual marketing budget.
• Define and refine ideal client profiles, positioning, offers, and service-line messaging with the partners.
• Build repeatable demand across SEO, Google Ads, Local Services Ads, paid social, email, content, video, local search, community events, seminars, webinars, and referral partnerships.
• Identify the few channels that can produce scalable, profitable demand, then concentrate resources behind them.
• Forecast qualified consultations, signed matters, and marketing-sourced revenue by channel, month, and quarter.

FUNNEL PERFORMANCE AND CLIENT JOURNEY
• Own marketing's portion of the client journey: first touch through qualified consultation booking and nurture.
• Partner with intake to establish and improve lead qualification, speed-to-lead, booking, show-rate, and follow-up systems.
• Build nurture sequences for prospects not ready to engage immediately.
• Improve lifetime value through plan-maintenance programs, client reviews, referrals, family-member outreach, and relevant cross-service opportunities.

REFERRAL AND LOCAL-MARKET DEVELOPMENT
• Build measurable referral programs with financial advisors, CPAs, insurance professionals, senior-care providers, and other attorneys.
• Strengthen the firm's local presence through Google Business Profiles, reviews, reputation management, events, and community partnerships.
• Measure referral-partner activity, matters, and revenue-not just relationship volume.

TECHNOLOGY, DATA, AND AI LEVERAGE
• Own the go-to-market technology stack: CRM, intake and practice-management integrations, call tracking, attribution, dashboards, and data quality.
• Establish a reliable source of truth from first touch through signed engagement and revenue.
• Build AI-enabled workflows that improve output and speed, including content production, campaign optimization, lead scoring, nurture, chat, intake automation, and reporting.
• Use data to make budget and channel-allocation decisions.

TEAM AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
• Build and lead a lean, high-leverage mix of internal staff, agencies, contractors, and technology.
• Hold vendors and team members accountable to defined outcomes, deadlines, and performance standards.
• Report performance monthly and lead a quarterly go-to-market review with the partners.

What Success Looks Like

FIRST 30 DAYS
• Complete an audit of current channels, spend, marketing assets, intake workflow, CRM, attribution, website, local presence, and referral activity.
• Establish a baseline for leads, highly qualified consultations, engagements, CAC, conversion, revenue, and return on spend by channel.
• Identify the largest breakdowns in the current funnel and present a prioritized 90-day action plan.
• Establish reporting cadence and data-quality standards.

FIRST 90 DAYS
• Deliver a 12-month go-to-market plan with budget, channel forecast, targets, and testing roadmap.
• Ensure every new matter can be attributed to a source.
• Establish an agreed lead handoff, response-time, qualification, and follow-up standard with intake.
• Launch the highest-leverage channel improvements and stop spend that cannot be justified by data.
• Launch at least one measurable demand test by day 60, with a defined hypothesis, budget, and success metric, and report results against the 30-day baseline by day 90.
• Produce a measurable improvement in qualified demand in at least one channel (for example, more highly qualified consultations, lower cost per qualified consultation, or faster speed to lead) against the 30-day baseline.

FIRST 6 MONTHS
• Launch or materially rebuild at least two acquisition channels.
• Implement an AI-assisted content and nurture system.
• Produce a dependable channel-level dashboard and forecast that the partners can use for decisions.
• Build a measurable referral-partner program.

FIRST 12 MONTHS
• Achieve the agreed marketing-sourced revenue target.
• Produce a reliable pipeline forecast for planning and capacity decisions.
• Establish repeatable, profitable demand channels with clear CAC and return-on-spend economics.
• Build a go-to-market function that does not depend on the founding partners for day-to-day decisions.
Decision Rights
You will have authority to make day-to-day decisions on:
• Channel mix and campaign execution
• Agency, contractor, and vendor management
• Content calendar and campaign creative
• CRM and marketing-technology configuration
• Testing priorities
• Approved marketing spend within the agreed budget and approval threshold
Partner approval is required for:
• Annual budget and material unbudgeted spend
• Pricing changes
• Major brand changes
• New geographies or service lines
• Legal and ethical review of attorney advertising and solicitation materials
• Hiring permanent employees

What We Need From You

• A documented record of personally building and operating measurable demand generation for a professional-services or similarly complex services business.
• Evidence of results expressed in numbers: qualified leads, consultations, CAC, conversion, revenue, return on spend, and forecast accuracy.
• Experience scaling a business to double and double again to eight figures in annual revenue is strongly preferred.
• High ownership: you make decisions, run disciplined tests, communicate clearly, and take responsibility for the numbers in good months and bad.
• Comfort operating with imperfect data and limited resources while building the systems required to improve both.
• Preferred, but not required, hands-on technical experience with online marketing tools, tracking systems, and AI-enabled workflows.
• Experience running seminars, webinars, events, or referral-based acquisition programs is preferred.
• Ability to translate complex estate-planning services into clear, compelling language for families.
• Professional-services, legal, financial-advisory, accounting, estate-planning, elder-law, or retiree/pre-retiree audience experience is preferred.
• Familiarity with attorney advertising and solicitation requirements is helpful.

This Role Is Not For You If

• You want to manage a large established team rather than build a lean function.
• You prefer brand activity without direct accountability for pipeline and revenue.
• You need perfect data, extensive support staff, or long approval cycles before acting.
• You have not personally owned channel performance, budget decisions, and measurable acquisition outcomes.
• You want to hand off execution to agencies without understanding the underlying economics.

Compensation and Benefits

• PTO: industry-leading 40 total days of paid time off, including 10 Recreation Days
• Recreation Days: 10 days a year taken in the middle of the week to do whatever reinvigorates you - time with family, a skydive, a play, a ballgame. We give our people time to re-create because we care about who they are outside the office: we want them to come back to their families on even the hardest days with something left to give.
• Base salary (depending on structure): $150,000+
• Performance-based compensation based on firm profitability, qualified lead generation, CAC, return on marketing spend, and forecast accuracy.
• Retirement plan with employer match
• Employer-paid Short-Term Disability Insurance
• Work that matters in the lives of families and business owners
• A culture rooted in balance, integrity, faith, and professional excellence

How to Apply

Send:
1. Your resume
2. A one-page summary of a business you helped scale, including:
- Revenue before and after
- Your specific role
- Channels you built or improved
- Budget managed
- Qualified leads or consultations produced
- CAC, conversion, revenue, or return-on-spend results
- If applicable, a specific AI-enabled workflow you built and its measurable impact

About the Employer

Our purpose is to build stronger families and communities. In particular, our niche is Legacy Planning, meaning that we assist families and individuals with transferring wealth, values, and traditions through trust-based estate planning and family communication tools in the most simple, comprehensive, and cost-effective manner. We believe in doing meaningful work with balance, integrity, faith, and professional excellence.