What Does a Director of Growth Do? A Guide

A company may have a great product or service, but it can go unrecognized without marketing to bring customers in. A director of growth is responsible for strategizing ways to grow a company's marketing presence and drive revenue. As a result, they'll typically collaborate with and lead sales, products, and engineering teams to launch creative marketing content.

Continue reading to learn more about this fast-paced, multifaceted role, including job duties in this role, educational requirements, salary potential, and career outlook. 

Read more: Marketing: What Is It and Why Do Companies Need It?

What is a director of growth?

The director of growth—sometimes referred to as a director of growth marketing, operational growth head, or director of growth and development—is a senior-level position that oversees growth initiatives across the organization. This growth can include customer visits to the website, views and engagement on social media, conversions, overall revenue, and more. Wherever a company can grow, this director has a hand in it. 

The director of growth takes marketing, sales, and product teams and combines their operations to meet the company’s key performance metrics (KPIs) to help ensure its continued growth and success. These KPIs can include:

• Customer loyalty and advocacy

• Customer base expansion and growth

• Increased customer flow through the sales funnel

• Driving conversions and revenue

Read more: Marketing Management: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

Main duties and responsibilities

Five primary responsibilities fall on the director of growth: data analysis, growth plan definition, prioritizing growth initiatives, executing growth initiatives, and revenue funnel optimization. Typical duties include:

• Using your analytical and science-driven knowledge to help develop reporting to show growth patterns

• Using data to lay out an organization’s growth plan and forecast where the business is headed

• Analyzing areas of improvement for marketing strategies

• Ability to use tools and software like email marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), customer relationship management (CRM), and more to increase revenue

Essential skills of a director of growth

A director of growth requires a large skill set, but you don’t necessarily need to be an expert in every area. However, two key skills to have are collaboration and project management. 

• Collaboration. You'll use your collaboration skills to work with various teams and connect segmented teams to achieve a common goal.

• Project management. You'll use management skills to help keep teams on task and working together to ensure they meet their goals. 

Keep in mind that these are some of the skills a director of growth requires. You will need working knowledge of the areas you’ll manage, including SEO, customer acquisition, digital marketing, traditional marketing strategy, and more. You’ll also need to exhibit a strong understanding of entrepreneurship, oversight, ROI management and monitoring, strategic planning, project management skills, and business and professional development. 

Read more: 11 Key Project Management Skills

Salary and job outlook

According to Glassdoor, the estimated total pay for director of growth in the US is $214,134 per year. This figure includes an average base salary of $139,523 and $74,611 in additional pay. Additional pay may represent profit-sharing, commissions, or bonuses. [1]. 

The growth director role would fall under the larger advertising, promotions, and marketing managers umbrella, which the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates will grow by 6 percent from 2022 to 2032 [2]. That is faster than the average occupation in the US.

Career path of a director of growth

Becoming a director of growth requires a fair amount of experience in marketing or product management to succeed. Many start in one of those two departments after gaining the required education. 

Some entry-level roles to consider on the marketing side include:

• Communications specialist

• Marketing assistant

• Social media coordinator

• Sales representative

• Junior business analyst

• SEO analyst

Once you've gained experience, you can move into more senior roles, including public relations (PR) manager, brand manager, SEO manager, and others. And after gaining experience in these roles, you may be ready to move up to a director-level role on the growth team. 

If you take the product path, you may start as a junior product manager before working your way to associate product manager and advancing toward a product manager or senior product manager role. At the senior level, you may develop the skills needed to land a director of growth position. Alternatively, you can continue the product path to become a lead product manager and head of product before trying to land the director-level role. 

Education 

No formal requirements exist to get into marketing management, which includes the director of growth role. However, organizations can set their own requirements. Most will require at least a bachelor’s degree in marketing or a related field, such as business administration. Some may require more advanced degrees, including a master’s degree or PhD. Keep in mind your experience may leave a lasting impression on future employers compared to formal education.

Certifications

As you work through your career and head toward becoming a director of growth, some marketing- and project-management-focused certifications can help display your expertise. Obtaining a certification is a great way to showcase dedication to your career, skills, and industry knowledge. Some options to consider include:

• Professional Certified Marketer (PCM)

• Project Management Professional (PMP)

• Master Project Manager (MPM) credential

You can also opt to earn a Google Ads certification or a Meta Blueprint certification.  

Get started with Coursera.

Ready to dive into a career as a director of growth? You can learn what to expect from the role by taking a few informative courses on Coursera. Some great options include Google’s Google Digital Marketing & E-Commerce Professional Certificate and Foundations in Digital Marketing and E-Commerce courses. If you want something more introductory, you can opt for the University of Pennsylvania’s Introduction to Marketing. Upon completing any program, gain a shareable Professional Certificate to include in your resume, CV, or LinkedIn profile.