Chief Marketing Officer

The organisation

Envision is the brainchild of co-founders Karthik Mahadevan and Karthik Kannan. As an industrial design student at the Delft University of Technology, Mahadevan’s master thesis work focused on finding ways to improve independence for the visually impaired. A few years later, in 2017, they founded Envision.

Envision builds impactful, design driven tools for humans that leverage the latest in computer vision technology so everyone can have faster access to information. Based in The Hague, the startup wishes to be the pioneers in enhancing and augmenting human vision that unlock potential beyond what one can see.

By speaking out the visual world around them, Envision empowers visually impaired people to become more independent. With ability to read in over 60 languages, the Envision app and Envision Glasses – developed as a platform on Google Glass – use artificial intelligence to read all kinds of text from any surface, recognize faces, describe scenes, find objects, scan barcodes, detect colors and much more.

In 2019, the startup won the Google Play Award for the Best Accessibility Experience and was inducted into AppleVis Hall of Fame 2019. Since its launch, Envision has organically grown to thousands of paying subscribers in 200+ countries all around the world. The company has highly ambitious goals. Going forward, Envision is looking to further develop its software to provide support for a broader audience with other forms of disabilities and over additional platforms. The company strives to be the market leader in building applications that can enhance human capacities in any way, shape or form.

The position

Every now and then a concept emerges which truly changes people’s lives. This can definitely be said of Dutch startup Envision, a company building AI-based tools to make visual information accessible to visually impaired people. The startup is growing rapidly. The CMO defines and executes a winning marketing strategy enabling Envision to scale up and become the global market leader they aspire to be. 

Tasks & responsibilities

Since 2019 Envision has grown at an impressive rate. Thus far, this growth has predominantly been the result of raising awareness through collaborations with local distributors and social media campaigns. In order to realize the company’s growth ambitions, Envision’s (digital) marketing has to be brought to the next level. A fantastic, challenging task for the CMO.

Backed by deep (digital) marketing knowledge and experience, the CMO applies a structured approach to the company’s marketing strategy. Knowing that reaching this particular niche audience comes with challenges of its own, since classical visual marketing channels have little to no impact. Yet, there are ample opportunities to reach the customer base. Especially emerging audio mediums like podcasts could prove interesting. The CMO pinpoints and seizes opportunities on where and how to best reach the visually impaired community all around the globe. Building a strong network of rehabilitation organizations and blind schools is an indispensable part of the CMO’s tasks.

The CMO takes the lead in both defining the strategy, as well as in its execution. They get to build their own team, for which the CMO is an inspiring and motivational leader. By showing the team and the organization the way forward in (digital) marketing, the CMO plays a crucial role in realizing Envision’s worthy mission and purpose: providing millions of people all over the world with a tool that has a real impact on their everyday life.

The ideal candidate is a self-starting go-getter with an entrepreneurial mindset and experience in an international environment. Strong communicative skills and a structured way of working are must-haves; a soft spot for innovation and an understanding of the market is definitely a plus.

“This definitely is the moment for Envision. We need the right person with the right skills and mindset to bring a winning long-term strategy and structure to our marketing activities. In doing so, the CMO plays a vital role in realizing our ambitious goals to drastically improve the lives of millions of people all over the world” – Karthik Mahadevan, Founder

Candidate profile*

• Minimum 10 years of experience in (digital) marketing in an international environment
• Affinity with the target audience is a plus
• Scale-up mindset
• Stakeholder management
• Strong copywriting and communication skills
• Experience in guiding and growing teams
• Fluent in English (verbal and written)

* Research shows that while male candidates feel confident enough to apply when they meet about 60% of the requirements, female candidates only apply when they tick every box. So if this role has your name on it, but you’re not sure about the criteria, we still want to hear from you.

Interested?

You can apply to this position by using the link below. Envision is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.