Brand Directors And Marketing Directors

A Brand Director leads the long-term brand strategy, ensuring the brand grows in awareness, penetration and revenue. They oversee marketing planning, communications, innovation, brand equity, consumer insight, agency management and cross-functional alignment with sales, category and product teams. In challenger brands, the role is often broader and more hands-on, combining strategy with execution.

A Brand Director typically focuses on brand strategy, positioning, equity, creative direction, consumer insight and brand performance.
A Marketing Director usually has wider responsibility across brand, digital, shopper, performance marketing, innovation, and sometimes trade marketing.
In SMEs, the titles are often interchangeable — but Marketing Directors usually own the full marketing function and budget.

Typical UK salary ranges are:

Brand Director (Challenger / SME): £90,000–£120,000 + bonus + LTIP
Brand Director (Blue-chip FMCG): £110,000–£140,000 + car + bonus + LTIP
Marketing Director (Challenger / SME): £100,000–£150,000 + bonus + LTIP
Marketing Director (Blue-chip FMCG): £120,000–£180,000 + car + bonus + LTIP
Packages often increase where the role includes innovation ownership, global responsibilities or P&L input.

Key capabilities include:

Strategic brand leadership and long-term brand planning
Deep understanding of consumer insights and category trends
Experience building and leading high-performing marketing teams
Strong agency & stakeholder management
Expertise in digital, performance and omnichannel marketing
Innovation and NPD launch experience
Ability to balance creativity with commercial thinking
Experience working in fast-paced, high-growth environments

Often yes — especially in regulated or highly specialised categories (e.g., baby, beauty, supplements).
However, many consumer brands prioritise:

Demonstrable brand-building success
Experience driving penetration and household awareness
Digital fluency
Ability to scale a brand quickly

Category is helpful but transferable brand leadership is just as valuable, particularly in challenger brands.

We run a specialist marketing executive search process tailored to the FMCG sector, including:

Market mapping across brand, marketing, digital and innovation functions
Competency-based interviews and behavioural profiling
Salary benchmarking
Full shortlist curation with references and insight
Support through offer negotiation and onboarding
Optional Thomas behavioural profiling for leadership roles

Lime Talent has deep experience appointing Marketing Directors for both challenger brands and global FMCG groups.

Because brands need leaders who can drive growth efficiently, connect with consumers, and build teams capable of delivering multi-channel brand execution. Lime Talent has specialist insight into the nuances of marketing within food, drink, health, wellness, beauty and lifestyle categories — and understands what “good” looks like at each stage of a brand’s growth.

The typical search timeline is 4–8 weeks, influenced by:

The required level of strategic vs. hands-on leadership
Specific category or channel expertise needed
Salary competitiveness
Candidate notice periods

We also support accelerated searches for urgent hire needs.

Yes. We regularly place interim Marketing Directors, Brand Leads, Innovation Consultants, and Digital Strategy contractors, often for:

Maternity cover
Rebranding or repositioning projects
Innovation pipelines
Turnaround strategies
Gaps between permanent hires

We recruit marketing leaders for:

Fast-growth challenger brands
VC/PE-backed consumer scale-ups
Founder-led SMEs
Global household-name FMCG companies
DTC, omnichannel and lifestyle brands

Our sweet spot is appointing leaders who blend creative flair with commercial impact.

Yes. While our core market is the UK, we also support roles across Europe, North America, the Middle East and APAC — especially for brands expanding internationally or launching into the UK for the first time.