Who we are
The 50 Best brand is the leading authority in global gastronomy, international drinks and premium travel space, showcasing worldwide trends and highlighting great restaurants, bars, hotels and vineyards around the world.
For more than 20 years, 50 Best has provided unrivalled guidance through its lists and events to gourmets, cocktail lovers and discerning travellers, inspiring consumers to discover and explore diverse establishments, cultures and destinations. The organisation remains steadfast in its commitment to unveiling up-and-coming chefs, bartenders and hoteliers, exploring trends, and highlighting the subtlety and complexity of various cuisines and drinks cultures from around the world.
Its portfolio includes The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, The World’s 50 Best Bars and their regional lists, as well as The World’s 50 Best Hotels, The World’s 50 Best Vineyards and the 50 Best Discovery platform.
We have offices in Gatwick, Brighton and London, UK; Montpellier, France; Singapore and Chicago, US. In line with the Company’s current Agile Working Policy, the successful candidate would be eligible to work part of the week from our London and Gatwick offices and to work remotely for the rest of the week
Position
Position: Full time – FTC
Location: London / Gatwick / Hybrid
The Head of Brand & Marketing is a hybrid strategic–operational leader responsible for shaping the 50 Best brand, building global visibility, and delivering high-impact marketing across digital and traditional channels, and events.
This role blends long-term brand strategy with hands-on marketing leadership, ensuring that 50 Best maintains a consistent, premium, culturally relevant profile worldwide while executing strong, multi-channel campaigns that drive audience growth and partner value.
The role requires a leader who can think like a Brand Director and operate like a Head of Marketing – balancing vision with execution.
What you’ll be doing:
- Leading and evolving the global 50 Best brand, ensuring consistency across Restaurants, Bars, Hotels, Vineyards and Discovery
- Owning brand positioning, messaging frameworks, brand architecture and tone of voice.
- Guarding the brand identity across all touchpoints, channels and partner activity
- Developing annual and multi-year brand and marketing plans aligned with business objectives and translating this strategy into executable plans for the marketing, digital and creative teams.
- Leading integrated campaigns for global rankings, ceremonies, consumer events and partner and content initiatives.
- Providing insight-driven direction using audience trends, analytics and market intelligence.
- Overseeing the day-to-day implementation of marketing plans across digital, social and events. Ensuring timely delivery, optimising performance across and reporting key insights to leadership.
- Leading digital strategy to ensure cohesive storytelling across platforms and growing global reach and engagement across social media, email, websites and emerging channels
- Collaborating with Partnerships teams to deliver co-branded campaigns and sponsor visibility, supporting revenue growth through strong marketing delivery for partners.
- Managing and mentor a team, fostering cross-department collaboration with Content, Events and Partnerships.
- Overseeing budgets, workflow and planning to ensure efficient delivery.
Requirements
What you’ll need:
- Extensive experience in brand and marketing leadership roles.
- Previous experience as Head of Marketing, Head of Brand, or Marketing Director.
- Proven track record in hospitality, hotels, or restaurant sectors (essential).
- Demonstrated success in building and scaling consumer brands, driving measurable growth and market share.
- Experience in media and publishing is desirable but not essential.
Other information
Company Benefits and Initiatives Include:
- 25 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays (pro-rata’d for FTC)
- An additional day of leave for you to take on a cultural celebration day or on your birthday if you like. A day for you! At William Reed, we call this our “MeDay”.
- A volunteer day to take for supporting a chosen charity and giving back to the community.
- Opportunity for hybrid working
- Contributory Pension
- Life Assurance Scheme
- Group Income Protection
- Enhanced family-friendly leave pay entitlements
- Wellbeing benefits, including: A health care cash plan, Employee assistance programme, Virtual GP service and Access to health & wellbeing resources and tools.
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Electric Car Scheme
Why work for us:
We provide a supportive work environment and are committed to maintaining a healthy work/life balance for all of our employees. Working for William Reed means that you will be joining a stable organisation that is committed to developing its employees and brands.
We warmly welcome and encourage applications from talented individuals of all backgrounds and characteristics.
If you need any support in accessing this opportunity, please do not hesitate to discuss this with us.