Marketing Manager - M&A Platform in London

The company is focused on addressing the challenges faced by business owners in the sub-£10m enterprise value market when it comes to selling or buying businesses. Manda aims to match buyers with sellers in this overlooked segment and finance acquisitions directly, ensuring buyers are pre-qualified and often pre-financed. Manda is part of iwoca, a leading fintech lender that has provided over £4 billion in funding since 2012, supporting SMEs in their defining moments.

We are looking for a Marketing Manager to lead how business owners discover manda, iwoca's M&A platform. As our first marketing hire, you will have the autonomy to shape our outreach strategy as we open the platform to new business owners. You will be responsible for building channels to reach owners who are unaware of iwoca, determining which channels yield real mandates at a sustainable cost, and discontinuing those that do not.

Your mission:

• Bring the right business owners to manda, focusing on those genuinely considering selling.
• Build the first growth engine for our direct application journey launching this autumn.

The role:

• Identify effective channels through fast tests across paid search, paid social, organic, and direct response.
• Manage the budget and make allocation decisions based on evidence.
• Write and test copy for ads and landing pages, iterating based on responses from business owners.
• Test offline methods such as mail and email to reach business owners not actively searching for exit options.
• Collaborate with iwoca's comms team to earn coverage in trade press and generate inbound interest.
• Establish the cost of acquiring seller mandates through each channel and define lead valuation before deals are made.
• Set up attribution and reporting to track channel effectiveness.
• Enhance our website to clearly communicate the manda process and differentiate us from traditional brokers.
• Once seller supply is established, assist in reaching serious acquirers ready to transact.

Requirements:

• 4+ years in acquisition, growth, or generalist marketing, ideally in a startup or scale-up environment.
• Experience in M&A, marketplace, or two-sided markets, particularly where supply was the constraint.
• Comfortable with long, low-frequency, high-value conversions.
• Numerate and data-literate, capable of building measurement frameworks before campaigns.
• Hands-on approach; able to write copy, set up tracking, and pull reports independently.
• Experience driving applications or sign-ups into live product journeys.
• Commercial thinker with a bias for action, comfortable navigating ambiguity.

Bonus:

• Experience marketing to owner-managers of established SMEs, especially around retirement or exit.
• Experience managing a paid channel budget and optimising performance.
• Regulated or financial services marketing experience.
• Familiarity with HubSpot, GA4, SQL, or BI tools like Looker.

The salary: We expect to pay between £55,000–£80,000 for this role, but we are open-minded regarding salary goals.

The culture: At iwoca, we prioritise independent thinking, evidence-based decisions, and continuous learning. We believe in the power of AI to enhance our work processes.

The offices: We strive to create a great working environment with offices in London, Leeds, Berlin, and Frankfurt, offering various events and community-led groups.

The benefits:

• Flexible working hours.
• Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership.
• Private GP service for you and your dependents.
• 25 days' holiday per year, plus additional leave options.
• One-month fully paid sabbatical after four years.
• Access to counselling and therapy sessions.
• 3% pension contributions on total earnings.
• Employee equity incentive scheme.
• Generous parental leave and nursery tax benefit scheme.
• Electric car and cycle to work schemes.
• Two company retreats a year.
• Learning and development budget for all employees.
• Access to learning platforms and company-wide talks.