Vice President, Marketing & Communications

Clay Cove Capital is seeking a Vice President, Marketing & Communications to join its Philadelphia office to scale our marketing and communications function. The firm has a well-defined brand and narrative, a strong content program running across the founders' and firm voices on LinkedIn, an active newsletter and thought-leadership cadence, and HubSpot operating as the core CRM and source of truth. This is not a build-from-scratch mandate - it is a scaling mandate. The VP will take strong foundations and extend their reach, sophistication, and output. The role owns the marketing engine that drives Clay Cove's growth: top-to-mid-funnel awareness and engagement that builds the firm's reputation and audience, and the network development, research, and events work that turns that audience into qualified LP and operating-partner relationships. The mandate spans leadership positioning, content and newsletter programs, earned media, investor research and prospecting, and the events and communications that anchor the firm's calendar - all running off a shared brand and the HubSpot CRM. Reporting to the Head of Strategy and partnering closely with the firm's founders, the VP is the senior owner of how Clay Cove shows up in the market, coordinating the existing content production team and holding the brand standard as they raise the firm's profile across the institutional real estate and allocator communities. Primary Responsibilities - Leadership Positioning & Founder/Firm Brand - Own the LinkedIn program across the firm's three established voices - Amachie, Brian, and Clay Cove - setting content strategy, post-type mix, and a calendar locked weeks ahead. Extend the program by building out a structured team-member brand initiative, and report on reach, engagement, and follower growth across all voices. - Content & Newsletter Engine - Own the firm's multi-tier content program end to end: the quarterly investor update to the LP and consultant list, the broader ecosystem newsletter, and long-form thought leadership in outlets such as IREI and PREA. Drive top-to-mid-funnel awareness and engagement through a consistent, high-quality publishing cadence. - Media Relations & Earned PR - Own the firm's earned-media strategy: maintain a tiered journalist and podcast map, develop pitches to target outlets (PERE, IREI, Capital Allocators, and peers), prepare the founders for interviews and appearances, and amplify every placement across LinkedIn, the newsletter, and direct LP sends. - Investor Research & Prospecting - Drive net-new relationship development by identifying the decision-makers and allocators Clay Cove should know but does not yet, gap-checked against HubSpot. Build and qualify tiered LP prospect lists across family offices, funds-of-funds, endowments, pensions, and RIAs; enrich, segment, and structure the founders' networks into actionable outreach lists. - Conference & Partner-Travel Outreach - Own conference and partner-travel outreach as a primary lead-generation channel: decide which conferences and markets to target, then plan and run the outreach sequences that turn them into meetings. This will build on the firm's current conference playbook, and how we measure and report results. - Firm Events & Convenings - Own the marketing and communications dimension of the firm's flagship internal events - the Annual Investor Meeting and Advisory Board convenings - from HubSpot campaign copy and branded build through audience segmentation and send cadence. Facilitate cross-team presentation development and deliver conference-grade event collateral. - CRM Administration & Marketing Systems - Own HubSpot as the firm's CRM, source of truth, and marketing-automation platform - including administration: custom property and object creation, platform automation beyond standard sequences and marketing email, user provisioning and permissioning, integrations, and reporting and dashboard creation. Maintain the LP cohort map and segmentation, keeping the system clean, current, and instrumented. - Marketing Infrastructure & AI Tooling - Own and extend the firm's AI- and agent-enabled marketing stack - content, research, enrichment, media, and the market-intelligence dashboard - keeping the systems current and training the broader team to use them. Bring a systems mindset to scaling output without scaling headcount one-for-one. - Brand & Creative Standard - Steward the brand and creative kit, ensuring every external asset - LinkedIn visuals, newsletter headers, one-pagers, and event collateral - reflects a consistent, polished, on-brand standard. Secondary Responsibilities - Team Coordination - Coordinate the existing content production team - interviews, editing, and drafting - to deliver the content line on time. - Conference Roadmap - Steward the firm's multi-year conference roadmap in partnership with the founders. - Messaging & Positioning - Partner on messaging and positioning decisions and develop the cross-vertical thesis-connectivity narrative. - Scope Management - Manage scope boundaries to protect the function's focus and output. Objectives The following are the build-outs the VP of Marketing & Communications should be prepared to own in the first 12-18 months. Ongoing scope is covered under Primary Responsibilities. - Scale Leadership Positioning - Extend the LinkedIn program beyond the founder and firm voices into a structured team-member brand build-out, sustaining a locked content calendar across all voices. - Deepen the Funnel - Demonstrably grow top-to-mid-funnel awareness and engagement through the content, newsletter, and earned-media programs, with quarterly reporting that shows the lift. - Mature the Systems - Bring HubSpot, the LP cohort map, and marketing automation to a consistent operating cadence as the firm's source of truth. - Expand the Network - Grow the qualified LP and operating-partner network through targeted research, network mapping, and event-driven outreach. Qualifications The ideal candidate will have 8+ years in marketing, communications, brand, or content roles, with meaningful exposure to private equity, real estate, financial services, or another institutional B2B context. A demonstrated track record of scaling an established marketing function - growing audience, engagement, and output on top of existing foundations - is required. - Education / Credentials - Bachelor's degree required; concentration in marketing, communications, design, business, or a related field; advanced degree a plus but not required. - Experience - Senior marketing and communications background with experience producing investor- and partner-facing materials (newsletters, thought leadership, event communications) and supporting capital formation through marketing; agency-to-in-house or growth-stage builders who have scaled a function are strongly preferred. - Technical Skills - Strong command of HubSpot and marketing-automation platforms - able to own CRM as a source of truth, including segmentation, sequencing, and reporting; editorial range to set content strategy across multiple executive voices, ghostwrite and edit to an institutional standard, and translate complex investment theses into clear narrative. - Software & Modern Tooling Fluency - Comfort with AI- and agent-enabled marketing tooling and the appetite to extend it; hands-on with enrichment and outreach tooling (Clay.com and similar enrichment, LinkedIn automation tools) and third-party data sources (Preqin and peers) to tailor communications to specific audiences; command of the tools that maintain a creative standard (Canva/brand kits, CMS/web, presentation craft); clear-eyed view of where modern tooling genuinely strengthens output and where it does not. - Analytical & Communication Skills - Exceptional writing and editing ability; fluent in the language of institutional investors and operating partners; analytically minded - instruments and reads engagement data and uses it to sharpen targeting and messaging. - Ownership & Operating Style - Builder-operator who can scale systems and direct a small team while holding the standard for the firm's external voice; thrives in a lean, high-ownership environment and protects the focus of the function. Total Rewards: We offer a competitive, holistic package of total rewards designed to recognize your time, talents, and impact. Along with a competitive base salary, this role is eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. Consistent with our "Be an Owner" philosophy, this role is also expected to participate in the firm's carried interest and long-term incentive programs, offering meaningful upside in the value the platform creates as it scales; specific terms are governed by the applicable fund and plan documents. Eligible employees also have access to a comprehensive benefits package, including: - Professional Development: Up to $2,500 annually for approved development expenses - Medical, Dental & Vision coverage, including STD/LTD, in accordance with plan terms - 401(k): Company-sponsored retirement plan - Flexible Time Off, as governed by the Employee Handbook Reporting & Collaboration Reports To: Head of Strategy Direct Reports: None initially; coordinates the existing content production team Works Closely With: Managing Partner, Partner, Head of Strategy, content production team Committee Participation: Weekly content and fundraising meetings; firm strategy planning