Vice President of Marketing, Riipen
Experiential learning platform and marketplace
Be an early applicant
Experiential learning platform and marketplace
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
101-200 employees
Company mission
To help students of all backgrounds and geographies boost their skills, gain career clarity, network with potential employers, and find jobs they love.
Role
Who you are
- Have 15+ years of experience in B2B marketing, with 5+ years in senior leadership in positions increasing in scope & accountability, preferably within SaaS, edtech, or a two-sided marketplace
- Bring deep experience building multi-channel marketing programs that speak to diverse customer segments—specifically employers (SMBs through enterprise), higher ed institutions, and government partners
- Understand how to market value-driven, funded programs (e.g., wage subsidies, grants) to small businesses and know how to drive urgency for enrollment and participation
- Are experienced with full-funnel strategies, lead generation, and lifecycle marketing—balancing both net-new acquisition and re-engagement
- Know how to build effective sales and marketing alignment, with a track record of supporting sales enablement and field marketing
- Use data to inform decisions, optimize campaigns, and track success—fluent with CRM, analytics, and automation tools
- Thrive in fast-paced, growth-stage environments and bring an entrepreneurial spirit to your work
- Are a strong communicator who knows how to translate impact into messaging that resonates with funders, schools, and employers alike
Desirable
- Experience marketing workforce development, co-funded talent programs, or B2B marketplace platforms
- Understanding of government relations, grant-based funding, or higher education sales cycles
- Familiarity with employer acquisition and retention strategies in a mission-driven or social impact context
- Background working with remote teams across time zones
What the job involves
- As VP, Marketing at Riipen, you’ll lead the strategic direction and execution of all marketing efforts across brand, product, communications, growth, and market research—supporting the company’s mission to scale meaningful work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences globally
- This role is about more than awareness—it’s about action. You will design and drive programs that grow Riipen’s ecosystem of employers, academic institutions, and strategic partners, with significant focus on building a healthy supply of high-quality employer projects to meet the growing demand for real-world student experiences
- This is a hands-on, high-impact leadership role for someone who can think strategically, execute thoughtfully, and work cross-functionally to turn ideas into outcomes
- Lead the development and execution of a full-funnel marketing strategy that drives marketplace growth by attracting and engaging employers, academic partners, strategic partners
- Develop and execute employer marketing programs that fill the marketplace with high quality, career-aligned projects, with a focus on converting and retaining high-quality employers—particularly small and midsize businesses looking to access student talent
- Support demand generation on the academic and partnership side, working closely with Sales, Account Management, and Strategic Partnerships to communicate the impact and ROI of Riipen programming to post-secondary institutions and government funders
- Collaborate with Sales to design and launch scalable go-to-market campaigns that drive adoption, re-engagement, and expansion across our core customer segments
- Build out the sales enablement engine, equipping Sales and Customer Success teams with tools, data, and messaging to close deals and demonstrate value to all stakeholders
- Lead employer lifecycle marketing efforts—educating employers on how to publish high-quality projects, accept student applicants, and engage meaningfully throughout the project duration
- Partner with the Impact and Research teams to turn Riipen’s outcomes into compelling collateral, including reports, case studies, and thought leadership
- Strengthen Riipen’s brand presence across earned, paid, and owned media channels, ensuring consistent positioning and messaging across employer, academic, and public audiences
- Act as a strategic advisor and cross-functional collaborator across departments to ensure alignment on messaging, targeting, and program positioning
- Measure and optimize marketing performance using data-driven insights and KPIs tied to marketplace activity, lead generation, and customer retention
- Grow, lead, and coach a high-performing team of marketers, fostering a collaborative and metrics-driven culture
Application process
- Stage 1: Application Received
- Stage 2: Internal Review
- Stage 3: Phone Interview w/ People & Culture
- Stage 4: Hiring Manager Interview
- Stage 5: 2nd Interview
- Stage 6: Final Interview
- Stage 7: Offer
- Stage 8: Hired and begin onboarding!
Our take
It’s a problem many graduates are painfully familiar with: you need experience to get a job, but you can’t land a job without experience. Riipen is a company helping to tackle this issue. Their platform offers post-secondary institutions the ability to connect their students to real-world problems and training, and to companies in search of new talent.
The company have helped over 100,000 students engage in applied learning, which historically might only have been accessed through an internship - typically freezing out students without the connections or resources to land one. So Riipen’s addressing inequality of opportunity in the post-secondary demographic, alongside streamlining the work of companies in sourcing talent.
With the economy still in recovery, and traditional ‘first job’ positions in certain industries curtailed, there’s an urgent need to reimagine what stepping onto the career ladder looks like. Riipen’s solution has been refined over the past several years, and is now well set to take advantage of this opportunity.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jan 2021
$1.5m
LATE VC
Dec 2019
$3.8m
EARLY VC
Total funding: $6m
Company benefits
- Enhanced health & dental benefits
- Generous time off
- Choose your work environment
- Paid parental leave
- Paid learning opportunities
Company HQ
Downtown Vancouver, Vancouver, BC
Leadership
Dave Savory
(Co-Founder & VP of Experiential Learning)Previously a Franchise Manager at College Pro Painters, before moving on to work in Sales and Business Development at Travergence Interactive, and then Softree Technical Systems.
Dana Stephenson
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously held various managerial roles in recruitment, marketing, and business at The Acquisition Group Enterprises, Advanced Air Supply, and The Moore Law Group. Subsequently worked as a sales rep at Beldon Home Solutions.
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