Sharper in purpose. Stronger in connection. Bolder in ambition
Osborne Clarke is an international, full-service law firm focused on organisations in high growth sectors, navigating high regulatory intensity, rapid innovation and disruption, and multi-jurisdictional complexity. Our foundation is a culture of character, camaraderie and collaboration that helps our colleagues thrive and our clients succeed. We are now evolving our people centred culture to become even more ambitious and accountable. This brings greater opportunity to do strategic, complex work – often collaborating across borders – with talented, generous colleagues, and to leverage data and technology to shape a firm that is growing with purpose and confidence.
The Role
We have created a new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) role to play a pivotal part in that journey: a Board level leader who will shape how we grow, how we show up in the market, and how we use data, digital and AI to create an innovative and high performing Clients & Markets function.
Reporting to the Managing Partner and sitting on the UK Executive Board, this is an opportunity to build and lead a function, not just inherit one. As a key architect of the firm’s growth in the UK, the CMO will set the vision and strategic framework across all Marketing & Business Development activity, translating firm ambition into clear deliverables to build a sharper, stronger, truly international firm with one identity and unified direction.
Working collaboratively with Marketing and BD counterparts across other jurisdictions, the CMO will lead the UK’s approach so that clients experience Osborne Clarke consistently across borders, and so that the UK business successfully delivers its 2030 Clients & Markets strategy.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership
- Set the overarching UK Marketing & Business Development (M&BD) strategy, fully aligned and structured to deliver the firm's business objectives, sector and practice priorities.
- Build, inspire, and develop the senior M&BD leadership team - creating clarity on strategic direction, expectations, and frameworks that enable the function to have genuine commercial impact and client leadership skills at every level.
- Take overall responsibility for enhancing M&BD proficiency and optimisation across the UK partnership and teams.
- Lead significant change initiatives - including brand refresh, CRM and automation transformation, and operating model design - with strong adoption and measurable benefits realisation.
- Work collaboratively and constructively with the International Head of Markets and M&BD leaders in other jurisdictions, influencing through expertise and partnership rather than authority; sharing intelligence, aligning on cross-border initiatives, and ensuring the UK plays a leading and constructive role within the international network.
- Use market, client, and competitive intelligence to inform strategic decisions, positioning, and investment priorities.
Brand Vision and Oversight
- Champion the UK brand vision, positioning, and strategic narrative - working in close partnership with the Director of Communications, Marketing and Brand to shape and refine the brand and communications strategy, and ensuring consistent, high-quality execution across all channels and audiences.
- Play a leading role in sharpening the firm's UK brand - working with the Director to ensure OC is seen as focused, distinct, and differentiated in the market, with a clear and compelling identity that clients and talent recognise and value.
- Contribute to thought leadership positioning at a strategic level - bringing perspective on priority sectors, topics, and points of differentiation - whilst empowering the Director of Communications, Marketing and Brand to lead content development and channel delivery.
Client Strategy and Growth
- Work closely with the International Head of Markets to ensure that major clients experience a consistent and joined-up Osborne Clarke across jurisdictions.
- Work in close partnership with the Director of Business Development to shape the strategic framework for the UK Key Client Programme - including segmentation philosophy, growth ambitions and governance.
- Take overall responsibility for defining the vision for UK client experience, drawing on "State of the Client" intelligence, satisfaction data and relationship health insight to inform strategic decision-making across the firm.
- Work closely with Finance and Pricing to develop commercial frameworks and pricing approaches that reflect the value OC brings - bringing a commercially minded, data-driven perspective to these conversations.
Digital Strategy and Marketing Technology
- Set the UK digital ambition and digital marketing strategy.
- Drive the firm's marketing technology and AI innovation agenda - evaluating new tools, setting the strategic direction for CRM and automation, and establishing clear governance and responsible use policies in collaboration with IT and Risk.
Reputation and Communications Oversight
- Serve as the firm's ultimate risk advisor for UK reputation.
- Own the firm's reputational narrative at Executive Board level - shaping the objectives and strategic direction that guide all external and internal communications activity.
- Play a pivotal role in bringing the One Firm: Shaping Tomorrow strategy to life across the UK business - ensuring the firm's internal narrative is as sharp and compelling as its external one, and that colleagues understand and feel connected to where the firm is going.
What you'll bring
Experience
- Proven track record as a CMO or senior marketing, business development or communications leader within professional services, ideally a law firm or other complex partnership.
- Demonstrable success in delivering strategic impact and transformation through generation of innovative and clearly structured BD&M initiatives.
- Broad expertise across strategic marketing, brand management, digital and demand generation, content, pursuits and key account management.
- Strong commercial acumen - including pipeline management, pricing awareness and profitability levers - underpinned by a data driven approach to decision making.
- Exceptional communication, influencing and stakeholder management skills, with the gravitas to partner with senior lawyers and the credibility to influence international counterparts without formal authority.
- Qualification in Marketing, Business, Communications or a related field; an advanced degree or professional certification (e.g. CIM/AMA) preferred.
Skills and Attributes
- Strategic thinker with strong commercial acumen and execution discipline; commercially astute, creative and data driven, with a strong understanding of modern digital and AI enabled marketing.
- An inclusive, collaborative leader who builds high performing, engaged teams and creates followership across an international network through inspiring colleagues and external stakeholders around a shared, ambitious vision.
- High integrity, sound judgement and strong situational awareness, particularly around reputational risk and sensitive issues.
- Deeply client centric, with a commitment to service excellence and a clear instinct for what matters to sophisticated buyers of legal and other professional services.
- Adaptable, opportunistic, pragmatic and solutions oriented problem solver.
We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits. We value the health and wellbeing of our people and our wide range of initiatives and benefits support this.
Our recruitment process
Please note that although we include closing dates for our roles as a guide, we review and progress applications on a rolling basis. At Osborne Clarke we do not make any recruitment decisions using automated decision-making.
We are committed to providing an environment where you can perform to the best of your abilities at every stage of your recruitment experience and beyond. If you require any adjustments to be made during the application stage, interview process, or when working with us, please let us know in confidence.
