How to Hire Demand Gen Leaders in London: 8 Steps

Hiring a Demand Generation leader in London feels deceptively simple until you get into the market. The best candidates are often already employed, they have strong leverage, and they are evaluated on outcomes (pipeline, CAC, payback, conversion rates), not activity. If your process is slow, unclear, or overly generic, you will lose the shortlist.

This guide breaks down a pragmatic, senior-hiring approach in 8 steps, designed for CEOs, CROs, COOs and talent leaders hiring in London.

Step 1: Define the demand gen mandate (and what “good” looks like)

Before you open a search, decide what problem you are actually solving. “We need more leads” is not a mandate, it is a symptom.

Start by aligning leadership on five basics:

• Growth motion: inbound-led, outbound-led, partner-led, product-led, or mixed.
• ICP clarity: who you sell to today vs who you need to win next (segment, geography, deal size).
• Primary output: pipeline creation, qualified meetings, revenue contribution, retention/expansion, or all of the above.
• Constraints: budget, brand awareness, sales capacity, regulatory/compliance limits.
• Time horizon: what you expect in the first 90 days vs 12 months.

A Demand Gen leader can be brilliant and still fail if the company expects them to “fix pipeline” without clear ownership boundaries between marketing, SDRs, sales and partnerships.

Step 2: Build a scorecard for a Demand Gen leader (not a job description)

London candidates will ask sharp questions early, especially at Head of Demand Gen, Director, or VP level. A scorecard helps you answer those questions consistently, and assess candidates against the same bar.

Include:

Outcomes

Define 3–6 outcomes with measurable indicators.

Examples:

• Increase marketing-sourced pipeline in a specific segment.
• Improve conversion rate from MQL to SQL.
• Reduce CAC or improve CAC payback period.
• Improve funnel velocity and pipeline quality.

Competencies

Assess the capabilities that produce those outcomes:

• GTM strategy: ICP refinement, positioning collaboration, segmentation, messaging.
• Channel leadership: paid search/social, SEO/content, lifecycle, webinars/events, ABM, partners.
• Analytics and measurement: attribution, experiment design, forecasting, data hygiene.
• Operating cadence: weekly pipeline reviews, growth experiments, reporting that sales trusts.
• Leadership: hiring, coaching, agency management, stakeholder management.

A scorecard also reduces “halo effect” hiring, where one strong channel (e.g., paid social) distracts from gaps in commercial thinking or stakeholder leadership.

Step 3: Set the role scope, seniority, and resources (before you meet candidates)

Many Demand Gen searches stall because the role is positioned as senior, but resourced like an individual contributor.

Make three decisions upfront:

Where the role sits

Common London patterns include:

• Reporting to the CRO (revenue alignment, pipeline accountability)
• Reporting to the CMO (brand, product marketing collaboration)

Either can work, but candidates will test whether sales and marketing are truly aligned.

Hands-on vs team builder

Be explicit:

• Do you need someone to run channels themselves for 6–12 months?
• Or do you need someone to build a function, hire a team, set strategy and governance?

What they inherit

Document the current state:

• Martech stack, tracking maturity, attribution model
• Budget range and flexibility
• Existing agencies and performance history
• Relationship health between marketing and sales

A high-calibre leader will not commit without understanding the “starting conditions”.

Step 4: Write a London-competitive brief that attracts the right shortlist

Top Demand Gen candidates do not respond to generic responsibilities. They respond to clarity, impact, and a credible mandate.

Your brief should communicate:

• The business context: stage, funding reality, growth targets, constraints.
• The target customer: verticals, buyer personas, buying cycles, deal sizes.
• The growth challenge: what is broken, what is missing, what has already been tried.
• The operating model: collaboration with sales, SDR, RevOps, product marketing.
• The success definition: outcomes and timelines.

Also, be careful with inflated requirements. If you demand expert-level depth in every channel plus deep RevOps and a people leader, you will narrow the market unnecessarily.

Step 5: Choose the right sourcing strategy for London (and don’t rely on inbound)

The strongest London Demand Gen leaders are commonly passive. They might be open to a conversation, but they are not applying.

A practical sourcing mix:

• Targeted outbound sourcing (competitor mapping and adjacent industries)
• Referrals (including operators who have built teams in similar GTM models)
• Selective communities (growth marketing meetups, operator networks)
• Specialist search support when the role is business-critical

This is where partnering with experienced marketing recruiters London companies use for senior GTM hires can materially increase shortlist quality, especially if you need confidential outreach, market mapping, and tight candidate calibration.

When you source, look beyond title matching. “Head of Growth” can mean performance marketing in one company and full-funnel revenue ownership in another.

Step 6: Run structured interviews that test judgement, not jargon

Demand gen interviews fail when they become “tell me about your channels” discussions. Senior candidates can sound polished without proving they can run your growth engine.

Use a structured process with consistent evaluation criteria:

Interview 1: Commercial clarity

Test how they translate business goals into a demand strategy.

Interview 2: Funnel and measurement depth

Explore how they diagnose funnel issues and build dashboards people actually trust.

Interview 3: Stakeholder leadership

Pressure-test how they align with sales leadership, handle conflict, and set operating cadence.

If you want a quick set of high-signal prompts, use questions like:

• What did you inherit in your last role (budget, team, conversion rates), and what did you change first?
• Walk us through your funnel model. Where do you expect diminishing returns, and how do you manage it?
• Describe a time sales disagreed with lead quality. What did you do, and what changed?
• What metrics do you trust weekly, and which ones are lagging indicators?
• When would you invest in ABM vs scaling inbound, and what assumptions drive that choice?

Look for crisp thinking, sensible trade-offs, and evidence they can influence without hiding behind tools.

Step 7: Use a case exercise that mirrors the role (and respects candidate time)

A case exercise can be extremely predictive, but only if it reflects the job.

Keep it realistic:

• 60–90 minutes of prep (max)
• Clear prompt and data boundaries
• A short readout (10–15 slides or a 1–2 page memo)

Good case prompts include:

• Diagnose a funnel with 6–8 metrics and propose the first 3 experiments
• Create a 90-day demand plan for a new segment
• Build a measurement approach when attribution is messy

Avoid “free consulting” cases that ask for a full channel plan, creative concepts, and budget allocations across 12 months.

Also consider candidate suitability for high-pressure environments. Demand generation is an intensity role. If your company operates in a highly sensitive space (healthcare, finance, regulated services), you may want to probe how candidates balance growth with compliance and user trust. For instance, a provider marketing a specialist service like comprehensive psychiatric services in NYC needs demand generation that is performance-minded while remaining highly responsible in messaging and targeting.

Step 8: Close the hire with a clear offer, then onboard for impact

Closing senior demand gen talent in London often comes down to two things: clarity and momentum.

Make the offer concrete

Be ready to discuss:

• Scope and decision rights (especially across SDR alignment and RevOps)
• Budget and headcount plan
• Hybrid expectations and travel
• Compensation structure and what “exceptional performance” unlocks

Protect the first 90 days

Your new leader will ramp faster if you pre-arrange:

• Access to data, tools, and historical performance
• Introductions to sales leadership, product, finance, and RevOps
• A shared 30/60/90-day plan with mutually agreed priorities

A common failure mode is hiring a senior Demand Gen leader, then leaving them to fight for data access, CRM hygiene, or stakeholder alignment. That is not a marketing issue, it is an operating model issue.

A final note on speed and fit

If demand generation is business-critical, treat this like an executive hire, because the impact is often executive-level. A strong Demand Gen leader can change forecasting confidence, sales productivity, and ultimately valuation.

If you want support hiring demand generation leadership in London, Optima Search Europe specialises in senior GTM and marketing recruitment across high-growth and established firms. You can explore the firm’s perspective on selecting the right search partner in their guide on how to choose the right recruitment agency.