Available for what's next
Growth generalist. I build the strategy, write the brief, shape the messaging, and read the data — so you don't have to split that between four people.
001 — About
Multi-skilled. Outcome-focused. Built for scale.
I'm Chris Wilkie — a growth generalist with sixteen years building brands, scaling revenue, and doing whatever needs doing between strategy and shipping. Most recently I've led marketing at a hospitality SaaS through 6× revenue growth; before that I spent nine years building Mercedes-Benz of Edinburgh's marketing from the ground up.
The generalist approach is deliberate. The person who can hold the strategic vision, write the landing page, and read the attribution data doesn't create bottlenecks — they remove them. That's the lens I bring to every problem.
I've worked across B2B SaaS and automotive retail — with an early-stage company building its first real marketing function, and an established dealer group scaling what already worked. At heart I'm a translator: between the people who build a product and the people who need to understand it. Based in Edinburgh. Open to the right challenge.
002 — Career
Head of Growth Marketing
Built and lead the marketing function for a hospitality guest-engagement SaaS, growing the team from one to four and reporting to the CEO and board with ownership of a six-figure budget. Led the business through 6× ARR growth and a full rebrand — repositioning the platform from a modular CRM into a unified guest-engagement tool and growing average order value 6×. Owned go-to-market for five product launches since 2023 and built the bespoke GTM tech stack.
Marketing Manager
Promoted to lead dealership marketing — line-managing junior staff and owning strategic campaign planning, event management and business analysis. Sat on the National Retailer Marketing Steering Committee, representing the group at Mercedes-Benz UK head office, and led sponsorships and activations from Heart of Midlothian F.C. to a pop-up with Mercedes-Benz UK at the Royal Highland Show. Planned enthusiast-focused AMG performance experience days attributed to double-digit car sales.
Marketing Executive
Established the dealership's digital marketing function from scratch across email, social, website and PPC — including a first-of-its-kind email marketing programme that delivered attributable ROI and was later adopted across the wider Eastern Western Group. Key internal point of contact for Auto Trader and other automotive marketplace platforms.
003 — Projects
Selected growth initiatives — each with a problem, an approach, and a number that mattered.
Hospitality SaaS / Repositioning
Led the relaunch from a mix-and-match product suite to an all-in-one guest-engagement platform, anchored by a table-bookings launch. Realigned pricing to the new positioning and doubled ARPA in under 12 months.
B2B SaaS / Demand Gen
Built a scalable demand and lead-generation programme across brand awareness, paid media, content and capture — sustaining a consistent five-figure monthly pipeline and a 3.2 LTV:CAC on marketing-attributed deals.
Industry Campaign / Brand
Built a cross-industry content campaign as lockdown lifted, recruiting 20+ trade bodies, suppliers and outlets behind a sub-brand to help hospitality reopen — seeding partnerships that drove referral sales for years after.
004 — Achievements
01 / Growth
Six years of compounding growth
Led marketing through 6× ARR growth (28.6% CAGR), sustaining demand generation straight through the pandemic's disruption to the hospitality sector.
6× ARR
02 / Brand
BLACKBX → Stampede
Delivered a full rebrand and repositioning, realigning every sales, marketing and customer-facing asset — then evolved the brand iteratively across five product launches as product-market fit sharpened.
5 launches
03 / Function
Built from scratch, adopted group-wide
Established Mercedes-Benz of Edinburgh's digital marketing from nothing, including a first-of-its-kind email programme later rolled out across the wider Eastern Western Group.
Group-wide
04 / Team
A team built and led
Grew Stampede's marketing team from one to four, reporting directly to the CEO and board with ownership of a six-figure marketing budget.
1 → 4
005 — Approach
Sustainable growth doesn't come from finding the right hack. It comes from building the right system — clear positioning, channels that work together, and the discipline to stay focused when something new is shiny.
It also comes from questioning the assumptions everyone else takes for granted. When I joined a hospitality SaaS running the standard B2B playbook, the assumption was that hospitality buys software like any other business. It doesn't — it's an industry built on trust and relationships, and buys more like a consumer. Reworking the go-to-market around that single insight is what made the deals bigger, and better.
01
Clarity before scale
Confused messaging doesn't grow, it just spreads further. Get the fundamentals sharp before adding channels.
02
Generalists ship faster
A strategist who can write, analyse, and brief reduces handoffs and eliminates the gaps where momentum dies.
03
Know your buyer, really
Numbers tell you what happened. Understanding how your market actually thinks tells you what to do next.
006 — Reading
Currently reading
Recently finished
007 — Contact
Open to senior in-house roles, ambitious briefs, and conversations that don't have a clear agenda yet. Growth work, brand strategy, or anything that sits between the two.
hello@chriswilkie.com