Compare eight interim CMO and Head of Growth leaders available through GrowTal, a marketplace that matches vetted freelance and fractional marketing experts to companies.
An empty marketing leadership seat costs more than the salary. Decisions slow across pipeline, positioning, hiring and channel investment. Before committing budget, define whether the business needs a permanent executive, temporary leadership through a transition or senior guidance for a limited number of hours. The answer determines the kind of search to run and the leader to brief.
What a retained CMO search involves
Retained search has a shape. A fee, a search period, and a permanent hire at the end of it. That suits one case well: a company that has approved a long-term executive role and is ready to make that commitment. The scope should make the reporting line, decision authority, compensation and mandate clear before the search begins.
Temporary leadership solves something else entirely. GrowTal matches companies with vetted freelance and fractional marketing experts; it does not perform the marketing itself. Its disciplines include Strategy / Interim CMO alongside SEO, SEM, paid social, content, email and lifecycle, organic social, CRO, Amazon, programmatic, creative, UX/UI and copywriting.
The engagement terms also change the risk calculation. GrowTal experts can work hourly and as needed, with no minimum hourly requirement. For a leadership seat that exit matters most. Five days in you can stop and be matched again, rather than discovering the mismatch a quarter later. Against a retained search, that means discovering a poor fit in a week rather than after paying a placement fee.
Interim, fractional or permanent
The three options are not interchangeable. An interim CMO holds the seat for a defined transition. That may mean maintaining operating cadence after a departure, setting direction while the company recruits a permanent executive or stabilizing a marketing function at an inflection point. The brief should distinguish genuine executive authority from a consulting assignment.
A fractional CMO is different again. Senior leadership, ongoing, without a full-time seat. This model can fit a company that needs strategic direction and management but does not yet require that capacity every day. A Head of Growth is usually the sharper brief when acquisition, funnel performance or experimentation is the central mandate.
A permanent CMO is the destination, not the starting point. It is right when marketing leadership is an enduring full-time role with the budget, team and organizational authority behind it. A temporary leader can still help clarify the function, build its foundation and prepare for a handoff. For a closer comparison, read GrowTal’s guides to hiring a fractional CMO and fractional versus interim CMO leadership.
Eight marketing leaders available now
Romea Mirzani
Marketplace growth and paid social coordination
Romea serves as an interim marketing lead with paid social depth. She supports companies across Amazon, DTC, B2B, subscription, apparel, and health and wellness, helping brands coordinate marketplace and paid social strategies across channels.
Thomas Arduino
Demand generation for fintech, payments and SaaS
Thomas is a VP-level marketing leader and interim CMO focused on demand generation for fintech, financial services and digital payments. His experience covers BaaS, SaaS, credit cards and payment products in Fortune 500 environments and high-growth startups. He builds omnichannel programs around pipeline, customer acquisition and long-term value, with an emphasis on clear goals and team culture.
Ashley Ho
Marketing foundations and leadership transitions for early-stage companies
Ashley is an interim CMO specializing in marketing and creative strategy for well-funded early-stage companies, often from Seed through Series A or B. She helps teams shape their brand, clarify positioning and establish realistic organic and paid programs. Her work can include building the marketing foundation, helping hire a full-time replacement and managing the transition before stepping away.
John Hampson
Paid search, analytics and performance strategy
John combines consultative marketing leadership with hands-on paid search and analytics. Over the past five years, he has managed $1–5 million in annual ad spend, primarily for DTC e-commerce brands, and holds more than 50 active digital marketing certifications. His background also spans B2B technology, subscriptions, events and retail, and his strategy work starts with the business model, unit economics and customer behavior.
Katrina Adams
Paid social growth, creative testing and channel prioritization
Katrina is a growth strategist with experience across Meta, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat and other digital channels. She combines leadership-level thinking with hands-on media work, from setting direction to building campaigns. Her focus includes account and audience structure, creative iteration, efficient scaling and KPIs tied to pipeline or revenue.
Kelly Baumann
Lifecycle growth, audience segmentation and experimentation
Kelly is an email, content and growth marketer who often steps into Head of Growth or interim CMO roles. She has led growth marketing teams at Roo, Zero Hash and Wavely, owning campaigns from planning through execution, optimization and reporting. Her experience with HubSpot, Segment, Mixpanel and Preset supports targeted audience building, lifecycle campaigns and measurable experimentation.
Kirstin Hornby
Full-funnel demand generation tied to pipeline
Kirstin is an interim CMO and demand generation leader whose experience includes B2B SaaS, marketplaces, cybersecurity, fintech, retail and travel. She works across positioning, messaging, funnel design, channel priorities, campaign planning and sales handoff. Her focus is a practical growth system in which pipeline performance can be reviewed and acted on consistently.
Michael Miraflor
Brand strategy, growth operations and team design
Michael brings 13 years of media-agency experience alongside B2B consulting work. Formerly an SVP at MediaLink, he has advised executives on team structure, growth and brand positioning. His work spans B2B and consumer technology, media and events, including consulting for AI company brighter.ai, and he takes on senior interim roles combining operating design with long-term team building.
How to brief for a leadership seat
Start with the outcome, not the title. Name three things. The problem the leader owns, the decisions they can make, and the metric that shows progress. A transition after an executive departure calls for continuity and authority. A first marketing hire needs a builder comfortable with an undeveloped function. A repositioning or growth mandate requires evidence that the leader can connect strategy to execution.
Then the context. Document it: business model, stage, buying journey, team, budget, channels, technology and relationship with sales or product. Industry familiarity matters when it shortens the path to understanding customer economics, but it should not substitute for a clear leadership mandate. State whether the person must execute directly, lead an existing team, prepare a permanent hire or do some combination of the three.
The process opens with a form and a conversation about the seat itself, the mandate, the runway, who the leader has to work alongside. You then review hand-picked expert recommendations, speak with the experts and start working together. The site says companies can start as quickly as 48 hours, which is a best-case possibility rather than a guaranteed timeline.
There is no upfront recruiting cost, and GrowTal offers a free 30-minute introductory call followed by a fully refundable $500 deposit. Its homepage also lists a $300 Advanced Matching Service fee to initiate. Confirm the applicable terms for your engagement before proceeding.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a CMO executive search firm charge?
Retained search firms charge a fee to run a search that ends in a permanent placement. They do not publish standard figures, so the price, the payment schedule and the scope all have to be asked for. Ask what the quoted fee covers, when each payment becomes due and whether any additional costs apply during the search. The numbers vary by firm and assignment.
What is the difference between a CMO recruiter and a fractional CMO?
A CMO recruiter runs a search for an executive who will join the company permanently. A fractional CMO is the marketing leader: they enter the business for a defined period or ongoing part-time engagement and do the work themselves. One is a route to a hire; the other supplies leadership capacity. Choose based on whether the desired outcome is a permanent appointment or immediate operating involvement.
How much of a week does temporary marketing leadership take up?
GrowTal publishes no standard weekly commitment for temporary marketing leadership. The time allocation is set by the individual engagement and should reflect the mandate, decision load and amount of hands-on execution required. GrowTal experts can work hourly and as needed, with no minimum hourly requirement, so buyers should agree on expected availability, meeting cadence and response times before work begins instead of assuming a typical number of days per week.
Can a temporary leader hire and manage the team underneath them?
GrowTal does not publish a standard rule about an expert’s authority to hire or manage employees. Set that authority in the brief before interviews: identify who approves headcount, who makes final hiring decisions, which people report to the temporary leader and whether management includes performance reviews or only day-to-day direction. The briefing section above outlines the operating context and decision rights that should be documented.
A good brief makes the tradeoffs visible before anyone interviews. Decide which capabilities are essential, which can be supplied by the existing team and what a successful handoff should leave behind. When the mandate is ready, explore vetted interim CMO leadership through GrowTal.
