- Location: Enborne, Newbury RG20 0JN – Site & Field Based
- Executive Compensation & Progression
- The Package: A competitive executive base salary complemented by a Structured Value-Creation Incentive mapped directly to phase-capacity milestones and the long-term stewardship of the estate.
- Infrastructure Overrides: Overarching performance-related bonuses tied to the successful scaling of our digital ecosystem, B2B partner networks, and physical infrastructure.
- Equity Milestones: Substantial long-term financial upside via equity-equivalent or profit-share mechanisms, triggered upon hitting major corporate expansion targets and multi-site development milestones.
- Structure: Established 20-Year Reserve | 36-Acre Site | 1,000+ Existing Interments | Institutional Scale-Up
The Mandate
Acorn Ridge is a premier, highly respected natural burial reserve with a 20-year operational history and an enduring foundation of over 1,000 interments. Having fully established our model and secured deep community trust across our beautifully curated 36-acre estate, we are now executing an accelerated long-term growth strategy to develop the grounds into one of Britain’s largest and most significant natural burial reserves.
This is our first senior executive hire. We require an experienced, results-driven, and deeply compassionate Commercial Director to take immediate operational and decisive strategic leadership. Your mandate is to steward our existing phases to capacity, establish a highly professionalized regional outreach network, elevate our digital presence, and direct a major multi-phase infrastructure expansion across the estate.
The Vision: Heritage Preservation & Infrastructure Development
This role focuses on transforming the 36-acre reserve into a landmark ecological destination and the primary regional choice, ensuring our commercial growth always honours the sacred nature of the grounds.
- Digital Ecosystem & Contemporary Outreach: You will oversee the complete modernization of our digital infrastructure, ensuring our online presence reflects the serene, premium nature of the reserve. This includes developing a world-class website, implementing intuitive digital pre-planning tools, and executing thoughtful marketing to serve the modern family.
- Accelerated Market Presence: You will lead the charge in establishing Acorn Ridge as the preeminent natural alternative in the region. By offering a permanent, beautiful, and deeply personal resting place, you will position our premium natural offerings as the preferred choice over high-volume crematoriums and impersonal online cremation models.
- B2B Relationship Engineering: You will personally cultivate and manage deep, trusted relationships with regional independent funeral directors, civil celebrants, and healthcare networks, ensuring Acorn Ridge is recognized as the gold standard in bereavement care partnership.
- Flagship Visitor Centre: You will head up the development and commercial integration of a proposed, state-of-the-art Visitor & Bereavement Centre on-site. This landmark facility will serve as the operational hub for the region—providing a tranquil, premium space for family consultations, community remembrance, and an elite visitor experience.
- Long-Term Strategic Expansion: You will leverage our enhanced infrastructure and 20-year history to explore regional growth opportunities, including the potential acquisition and development of further natural burial grounds, while expanding our brand ecosystem into comprehensive, end-to-end bereavement care solutions.
Key Objectives & Deliverables
- Phase 1: Stewardship & Capacity Optimization (Immediate): Take control of an active, mature reserve. You will execute a decisive optimization of current B2B and B2C channels, expand the referral network with independent funeral operators, and manage plot allocations to bring the current phases of the grounds to capacity.
- Phase 2: Regulatory Compliance & Ethical Mastery: Navigate the strict legal, environmental, and planning frameworks inherent to the bereavement and land-use industries. You will ensure the business operates at the highest standard of compliance, mitigating liabilities while expanding operations to position the brand as a highly trusted, legally ironclad industry leader.
- Phase 3: Operational Process Engineering: Transition the business into a highly structured, scalable, and professionalized corporate operation. You will define our premier standards of care and operational guidelines, implement robust CRM infrastructure, and recruit, train, and direct a high-performance sales and advisory team rooted in empathy.
- Phase 4: Infrastructure & Capital Project Leadership: Direct the rollout of the new visitor centre and land conservation phases across the 36 acres, ensuring capital expenditure translates directly into increased brand prestige and long-term community loyalty.
The Candidate Profile
We are targeting an ambitious, outcome-focused executive with a proven track record of scaling mature businesses, engineering professionalized revenue streams, and managing premium estates or high-value land operations with absolute discretion.
- Corporate Pedigree & Experience: You possess extensive experience at a senior management, regional director, or commercial lead level within bereavement services, premium healthcare logistics, luxury retirement living, or high-end rural land/estate environments.
- Process Architect: You look at a business as a structured framework that must be optimized for maximum efficiency. You know how to design operational systems where commercial inputs predictably equal high-standard, results-driven outcomes.
- Regulatory & Ethical Acumen: You are highly comfortable working within regulated sectors, possessing the ability to turn legal and compliance boundaries into a competitive advantage that builds long-term institutional loyalty.
- Forward-Thinking Leadership: You are a proven leader capable of directing complex operations, holding teams accountable to rigid KPIs, managing contractors for capital builds, and driving high-level digital and physical business transformations.
Executive Compensation & Progression
- The Package: An executive package comprising a strong base salary, short-term performance bonuses tied to capacity metrics, and overarching Scale-Up Overrides (earning a percentage of total revenue generated by the team you build).
- Equity Milestones: Significant long-term financial upside via equity or profit-share mechanisms triggered upon the successful development of the site infrastructure, digital platforms, and the expansion of new regional locations or services.
- Trajectory: Clear, performance-mapped progression to full Managing Director of the expanded corporate entity.
Application Process
To register your interest in absolute confidence, please submit your CV alongside a brief executive summary detailing:
- Your track record as an outcome-focused leader taking an established organization and successfully accelerating its market presence.
- Your experience in building strategic B2B networks and navigating strict regulatory constraints to achieve decisive industry leadership.
Pay: From £45,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Free parking
- On-site parking
Work Location: In person
