ABOUT UPGRAD FUTURE SCHOOLS CONSORTIUM UpGrad Future Schools Consortium (UFSC) is the K-12 school-building arm of UpGrad, India's largest online higher-education platform. UFSC is building 45 schools over five years, structured across three phases: Phase 1 covers the first 10 schools; Phase 2 scales the network to 30 schools; and Phase 3 takes the Consortium to its full scale of 45 schools. UFSC operates across four school formats: Boutique Greenfield, Tier 1 Greenfield, Micro Schools, and Roll-Up. UpGrad is a well-recognised name in online higher education and skilling. In the K-12 school space, UFSC is starting from zero. There is no brand awareness, no parent community, and no track record to point to. The Head of Marketing and Brand is the person who changes that — building the UFSC story in the school market from scratch, and converting that story into the leads that fill every seat in every school we open. THE ROLE This is a brand launch role, not a brand management role. The distinction matters. UFSC is entering a market where established school brands have decades of reputation, word-of-mouth networks, and parent community loyalty. The challenge is not to maintain an existing position — it is to create one, quickly, in four cities simultaneously, for a school group that most parents have never heard of. The Head of Marketing and Brand must be equally strong at three things that most marketing professionals excel at only one of: brand building, performance marketing, and new-age digital execution powered by data and AI. The brand work creates the story that makes UFSC credible and desirable to premium and HNI families. The performance marketing work turns that credibility into a measurable pipeline of inquiries. And the new-age marketing layer — AI-driven content creation, automated lead nurturing, predictive analytics, CRM intelligence, and process efficiency — is what makes UFSC able to compete with established school brands that have decades of word-of-mouth behind them. This is not optional sophistication. It is how UFSC builds market presence at speed and at the cost efficiency a Phase 1 organisation requires. This person owns every touchpoint through which a prospective family encounters UFSC, from a sponsored Instagram post to a school open day to a PR feature in a city lifestyle magazine. They will build the marketing function from the ground up, manage all agency relationships, and lead the Design Associate who joins alongside them. In a startup environment, they will also be doing significant execution work themselves. WHAT YOU WILL OWN 1. Brand Strategy and Positioning
• Build the UFSC brand narrative for the K-12 school market from scratch: the positioning, the tone of voice, the visual language, and the story that differentiates UFSC from established premium school brands in each Phase 1 city.
• Develop a clear understanding of the premium and HNI family segment in each Phase 1 city, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, including how they make school decisions, what signals quality to them, and what UFSC needs to stand for to earn their consideration.
• Work closely with the Managing Director to ensure the brand narrative is aligned with UFSC's academic philosophy, school format positioning, and the UpGrad Group's broader brand equity in education.
• Leverage UpGrad's existing brand recognition in higher education as a credibility signal in the school market, while building a distinct UFSC identity that stands on its own in the K-12 context.
• Build the UFSC brand guidelines, the complete reference framework for how the brand looks, sounds, and behaves across every channel and format, and ensure all agencies and internal stakeholders work within it. 2. New-Age Digital Marketing, AI, and Lead Generation
• Own UFSC's full digital marketing presence: website, SEO and SEM, social media (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube), performance marketing campaigns, and AI-powered email and WhatsApp nurture journeys targeted at prospective school families.
• Build and manage the digital marketing funnel that connects brand awareness to inquiry generation, ensuring every rupee of marketing spend is tracked against lead volume, inquiry quality, and cost per inquiry by school and city.
• Design and execute targeted digital campaigns for HNI and premium family segments across each Phase 1 city, using a mix of organic content, paid social, search, and programmatic channels tailored to where these families actually consume content.
• Own the UFSC website as a conversion tool, not just a brand asset. Every page should be designed to move a prospective parent closer to booking a school visit.
• Brief, manage, and hold accountable the outsourced digital marketing agency, setting clear KPIs for lead volume, cost per lead, and channel performance, and reviewing performance weekly.
• Embed AI tools across the marketing function: use generative AI for content creation and campaign ideation, AI-driven analytics platforms for campaign optimisation, predictive lead scoring to prioritise the highest-intent inquiries for the admissions team, and automation tools to build scalable nurture journeys without scaling headcount.
• Build a marketing analytics stack that gives real-time visibility into the full funnel, from first brand impression through inquiry, school visit booking, and conversion to enrolment,



using tools such as GA4, Meta Pixel, CRM dashboards, and attribution modelling.
• Use data and AI to continuously improve marketing efficiency: A/B test creative and copy, optimise bidding strategies, identify the highest-performing inquiry sources by school and city, and reduce cost per qualified inquiry over time.
• Stay ahead of the curve on new-age marketing channels and tools relevant to the HNI and premium family segment, including WhatsApp Business API, YouTube Shorts, influencer partnerships with credible education voices, and community-led growth strategies. 3. PR, Events, and Community
• Build UFSC's public relations strategy and manage the PR agency relationship, generating editorial coverage in premium city lifestyle media, parenting publications, and education press that builds awareness and credibility among the target family segment.
• Design and own the school open day and parent information evening experience for each Phase 1 school, treating these as high-stakes conversion events where brand experience and admissions pipeline are built simultaneously.
• Build UFSC's presence in the premium community networks where HNI families spend time: residential associations, club networks, corporate family programmes, and curated parent communities in each Phase 1 city.
• Own UFSC's presence at relevant education fairs, expat community events, and premium lifestyle events across Phase 1 cities, ensuring the brand shows up in the right rooms. 4. Agency and Team Management
• Own all marketing agency relationships: digital, creative, PR, and events. Brief them precisely, manage them actively, and hold them accountable to outcomes, not activity.
• Lead the Design Associate, setting their creative brief, reviewing their output, and ensuring all in-house creative work meets the brand standard.
• Manage the marketing budget across all channels and agencies, optimising spend allocation based on channel performance and enrolment season priorities.
• Work closely with the Admissions Head to ensure marketing activity is timed and targeted to support the admissions calendar, with lead generation ramping up ahead of key inquiry and open day windows in each city. WHO YOU ARE We are looking for a marketer who has launched brands, not just managed them, and who understands how to reach and influence premium and HNI consumers specifically. The following is a guide, not a checklist.
• Eight to twelve years of experience in brand building, marketing, or growth, with a demonstrable track record of launching or repositioning a premium brand to a high-net-worth or premium consumer audience.
• You are equally strong at brand strategy and performance marketing. You can write a brand positioning document and you can read a Google Ads dashboard. You do not outsource your thinking to agencies on either side.
• You have experience in premium consumer marketing, luxury, hospitality, premium financial services, premium edtech, or a comparable category where the buyer is affluent, discerning, and makes high-involvement decisions. K-12 school marketing experience is an advantage but not essential if the consumer marketing track record is strong.
• You understand digital marketing at a level of genuine technical competence. You know how Meta campaigns are structured, what a good CPL looks like, how to brief an SEO strategy, and how to evaluate whether an agency is performing or managing optics.
• You are fluent in AI-powered marketing tools and actively use them. You use generative AI for content and creative ideation, AI analytics for campaign optimisation, and automation platforms for lead nurturing at scale. This is not a future aspiration for you — it is how you work today.
• You think in funnels and data. You can read an attribution report, identify where leads are dropping off, and make a confident decision about where to shift budget or change creative. You are as comfortable in a data dashboard as in a creative review.
• You have managed multiple agencies simultaneously and you are not intimidated by the work. You set clear briefs, you hold people to timelines and outcomes, and you are not afraid to make a change when an agency is not delivering.
• You are a strong creative thinker and you have taste. UFSC is a premium brand entering a market with established premium players. Everything we produce has to be excellent, not just adequate. You are someone who notices when something is not good enough and you know what to do about it.
• You are comfortable in a startup environment where you will be doing significant execution work yourself. You will not have a large team. You will be writing copy, reviewing designs, briefing agencies, attending open days, and building Instagram content strategies all in the same week.
• You are genuinely curious about education and you can speak with credibility and warmth to premium school parents.



You understand that selling a school is a very different conversation from selling most products, and you approach it with the appropriate intelligence and sensitivity. Skills and Knowledge Technical and Functional Skills
• Brand strategy and positioning: ability to build a brand from scratch, define its positioning, tone of voice, and visual identity, and ensure it is consistently expressed across every channel and touchpoint.
• Performance marketing and AI-driven execution: working knowledge of Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, SEO and SEM strategy, programmatic display, and email and WhatsApp marketing platforms. Proficient in using AI tools for campaign optimisation, predictive lead scoring, and automated nurture sequences. Able to set KPIs, read campaign data, and optimise spend allocation in real time.
• Content strategy: ability to define and oversee a content strategy across social, web, email, and offline channels that builds brand awareness and drives inquiry generation with a premium family audience.
• PR and media relations: experience managing PR agencies and building media relationships that generate editorial coverage in the right publications for a premium consumer brand.
• Events and experiential marketing: experience designing and executing brand events, open days, and community engagement activations that convert attendees into leads.
• Marketing analytics and attribution: ability to build and manage a marketing analytics stack covering GA4, Meta Pixel, CRM dashboards, and multi-touch attribution modelling. Can identify the highest-performing lead sources, track funnel conversion at every stage, and use insights to drive continuous improvement in marketing ROI.
• Budget management: able to manage a marketing budget across multiple channels and agencies, track spend against results, and optimise allocation based on ROI. Leadership and Behavioural Skills
• Creative leadership: robust aesthetic sensibility and the ability to brief, evaluate, and push creative work to a standard appropriate for a premium school brand.
• Data orientation: uses data to make marketing decisions. Tracks the funnel from impression to inquiry to school visit and knows which levers to pull when numbers are off target.
• Agency management: clear, demanding, and fair in managing agencies. Sets precise briefs, reviews outputs rigorously, and is not satisfied with activity reports as a substitute for results.
• Startup mindset: comfortable doing significant execution work personally in Phase 1. Does not wait for a full team to be in place before making progress. Domain Knowledge
• Deep understanding of how premium and HNI families in Indian Tier 1 cities make school decisions, including the role of word-of-mouth, school visits, social proof, curriculum brand, and peer networks in the decision process.
• Familiarity with the premium K-12 school landscape in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, including how established school brands are positioned and what UFSC needs to do to earn consideration alongside them.
• Understanding of the marketing channels and community networks where premium and HNI families in India are most reachable and most likely to engage with school-related content. Qualification
• MBA or postgraduate qualification in Marketing, Brand Management, or Business Administration from a reputed institution is preferred.
• Candidates with an outstanding brand launch track record in a relevant premium consumer category will be considered regardless of formal qualification. WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE AT 12 MONTHS Success is a UFSC brand that premium families in four cities know, respect, and are actively inquiring about, and a marketing engine that is generating the leads the Admissions Head needs to fill every school.
• UFSC has a complete brand identity: positioning, tone of voice, visual guidelines, and a narrative that is consistently applied across all channels and all cities.
• A digital marketing engine is live and performing, generating qualified inquiries for each Phase 1 school at an agreed cost per inquiry, with weekly reporting to the MD and Admissions Head.
• Each Phase 1 school has held at least one successful open day or parent information evening, with attendance meeting or exceeding target and a measurable conversion to admissions inquiries.
• UFSC has media presence in the key premium lifestyle and parenting publications in each Phase 1 city, with editorial coverage that builds credibility with the target family segment.
• All agency relationships are contracted, performing against agreed KPIs, and managed actively with monthly performance reviews.
• The marketing and brand infrastructure built in Phase 1 is documented, scalable, and ready to support the launch of 20 additional schools in Phase 2 without starting from scratch. WHAT THIS ROLE OFFERS
• The opportunity to build a brand from zero in one of India's most competitive and most consequential consumer categories, with the backing of UpGrad and the freedom to do it properly.
• A role with genuine creative and commercial ownership, reporting directly to the Managing Director, with meaningful influence over how UFSC presents itself to India's most discerning school parents.
• The institutional credibility and financial backing of UpGrad, India's largest edtech platform, combined with the pace and ownership of building a new venture.

📌 Head-Marketing & Brand Communication (Hyderabad)
🏢 upGrad
📍 Hyderabad