Head of Marketing - Korea
At a glance
Leadership Marketing Leadership role at Speak. Seoul · full-time.
Pay not stated Marketing Leadership salary
Growth Roles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Set Korea’s B2C direction across audiences, messaging, channels, and the full app-and-web funnel
- Grow recurring consumer revenue while managing blended LTV/CAC performance and the market plan
- Expand brand leadership through awareness, consideration, branded search, and demand-building activity
- Test acquisition and monetization ideas with Product, including freemium, family, bundle, and activation options
- Lead the Korea marketing team and connect local insights with global playbooks from Speak’s headquarters
What you bring
- Bring at least ten years of integrated marketing experience focused on Korea, ideally in consumer tech or fast-growing startups
- Show full-funnel leadership from acquisition through retention, balancing brand judgment with performance measurement
- Use rigorous analysis and experimentation, including LTV/CAC modeling and channel economics
- Develop and manage marketers and designers across different specialties and experience levels
- Speak Korean natively and communicate in business English with global colleagues
Who this fits
You’ll suit a senior operator who can manage ambiguity, execute quickly, and lead both brand and growth work. The role is based in Seoul with a hybrid setup, requires Korean market fluency, and may involve travel, usually to San Francisco headquarters. You’ll work closely with Product, B2B Sales, and the global team while leading the Korea market.
From the employer
About us
Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language.
Learning a language can change a life by opening doors to new cultures, careers, and communities. Two billion people around the world are actively trying to learn a language, but the best way to learn (one-on-one tutoring) is hard to access at scale and hasn’t been meaningfully improved in decades. Speak is building a human-level, AI-powered tutor in your pocket: a conversation-first experience that lets learners actually speak, get instant feedback, and progress through carefully designed lessons. The result is a complete path from beginner to confident speaker across multiple languages.
Speak first launched in South Korea in 2019, where Speak has now become the number one language learning app, and we now serve learners across many markets and 15+ languages. Speak is one of the world’s leading AI companies, with over $150m raised in venture investment from OpenAI, Accel, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and more, with a distributed team across San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.
About this role
Speak is the #1 English learning app in Korea, and we are hiring a new Head of Marketing (Korea) to build what comes next. You'll own the entire B2C marketing engine for our first and largest market across brand, growth, partnerships, and creative. You’ll foster the healthy & organic brand and position we've earned while finding the next stage of profitable growth. The path you pave will also become references and the playbook for other global markets at Speak, naturally leading to a global scope.
This leader will completely own the market’s budget and an experiment-driven channel portfolio spanning influencer and creator, paid UA, organic and social, and partnerships. You'll also partner with our B2B Sales and Product teams to test new acquisition and monetization levers, bringing Korea B2C insights into broader business strategies and goals. A strong-yet-lean team of marketers and designers are waiting for you - and you will provide development & direction, while hiring new members to meet growing business needs.
What you’ll be doing
Own Speak Korea's B2C marketing strategy end to end, setting the direction on audience, messaging, and channel mix.
Grow B2C ARR against the market plan while meeting blended LTV/CAC goals, owning the full funnel across app and web.
Hold and extend our #1 position in the Education category, targeting above 50% top-of-mind awareness in our core segment and building the mid-funnel through consideration and branded search.
Partner with Product to prove new acquisition and monetization levers, including freemium variants, family and bundle offers, and new activation paths.
Create B2C & B2B synergy around demand generation and market fit to strengthen Speak’s position as both a consumer & an enterprise product.
Build, coach, and retain a top-tier talent across Brand, Growth, Partnerships, B2B, and Marketing Design.
Act as the bridge to SF headquarters, translating Korea insights into global playbooks and bringing global learnings back to the local market, including all the cultural nuances.
What we’re looking for
10+ years in integrated marketing facing Korea market, ideally in consumer tech or high-growth startups.
Proven full-funnel marketing leadership, spanning acquisition through retention.
Balance between brand and performance management, assessing values of marketing actions by both qualitative & quantitative measures.
Strong analytical and experimentation rigor, comfortable with LTV/CAC modeling and channel economics, and able to distinguish genuine result from noise.
Demonstrated experience building, coaching, and managing marketers & designers of various levels and specialties.
Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward execution.
Native fluency in Korean, in both the language and the market/culture.
Business fluency in English; communicating with the global team at Speak on a daily level should not be a blocker to get things done.
Ability to travel as needed, most often to San Francisco HQ.
While it's not required, it's an added plus if you also have:
Senior leadership experience (CMO or VP level) at a Series C+ consumer tech company.
Experience scaling from 1 to 10, creating demand rather than only capturing it.
Depth in Korea's influencer and creator ecosystem, with high sensitivity to creative & social trends.
Personal brand & story around language learning - carrying a passion that aligns to Speak’s mission
Why work at Speak
Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.
Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.
Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, Tokyo, and Taipei, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.
Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.
Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
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