Brand & Comms Lead

About First Mile

First Mile is a leading UK sustainability services provider and certified B Corp, delivering waste management and recycling solutions to more than 40,000 business customers nationwide. Operating across retail, hospitality, commercial offices and mixed-use estates, the business combines technology-enabled services with established recycling infrastructure to drive high recycling rates, transparent reporting and measurable environmental impact.

Backed by Warren Equity Partners, First Mile has ambitious plans for both organic and acquisitive growth and is actively pursuing opportunities to strengthen its market position through strategic acquisitions — including the recent addition of Greenzone Facilities Management to the Group. It's an exciting, fast-moving environment where our people play a central role in supporting growth, integration and delivering an exceptional service to our customers.

Role Purpose

The Brand & Comms Lead owns and grows First Mile's external brand, relationships and communications nationally. This is a new role, created to fill a gap in the Marketing team for external relationships, brand positioning and communications.

First and foremost, this is a relationship role. The Brand & Comms Lead builds the associations, networks and partnerships that put First Mile in front of the right people, including trade bodies, national groups, industry associations, government and public-sector procurement bodies, and the press. In doing so, the role raises First Mile's profile and reputation outside London, opens up access to more enterprise and public-sector tenders, and turns happy customers into active advocates.

The role also owns how the brand is communicated externally, including positioning, messaging, tone of voice and the press office function. It also owns the brand strategy as the Group grows organically and through acquisition, including brand due diligence and integration for M&A. It holds the Brand & Comms budget across PR, awards and experiential events, directing spend towards commercial outcomes.

Reporting to the Group Marketing Director, the Brand & Comms Lead leads the Brand & Design team, managing design an content support. The role works closely with the wider Marketing team, Sales, Customer Success, senior leadership and spokespeople, and the M&A team, and represents First Mile externally at events, on panels and with the media.

Key Responsibilities

Reputation & Relationships

·       Build and maintain a target relationship map covering trade bodies (e.g. CIWM), Business Improvement Districts, national groups and resellers, industry associations, and government and public-sector procurement bodies.

·       Cultivate press and trade-media contacts directly.

·       Own the events and conference calendar, including the industry expos, sustainability forums and procurement events First Mile attends, speaks at or sponsors, attending in person and following up on the relationships established.

·       Enter and attend industry awards as a relationship and credibility exercise, with partners and customers where possible.

Advocacy & Referrals

·       Run the First Mile referral and advocacy programme, identifying and nurturing happy customers and partners into active advocates through referral schemes, customer events and other activity.

Communications & PR

·       Own the positioning statement, messaging house and tone of voice that content, design, sales collateral and the website work from.

·       Assemble the proof points enterprise and public-sector buyers want to see, including compliance, the ESG and B Corp story, case studies and references.

·       Sign off the narrative and topics for thought leadership and executive presence across the website and social media channels.

·       Act as the press office: drafting and placing releases, fielding media enquiries and coordinating comment requests.

·       Prepare spokespeople, including themselves, for media appearances, panel slots and interviews.

·       Monitor reputational risk and maintain a mitigation communications plan.

Brand Strategy & Architecture

·       Define and evolve the First Mile brand and customer proposition, keeping it distinctive as the business scales.

·       Develop the Group brand architecture, determining the 'Brand House' or 'House of Brands' approach as part of the M&A strategy.

·       Lead brand due diligence in M&A, assessing brand fit and guiding how each acquisition integrates into the Group brand architecture.

·       Track how regional competitors position themselves for enterprise clients and public-sector frameworks, feeding insight back into First Mile's positioning.

Commercial & Performance

·       Own and manage the Brand & Comms budget across PR, awards and experiential events, directing spend towards commercial outcomes.

·       Set and report the brand health scorecard, including Share of Voice, earned coverage, referral rate and NPS, against targets set in the AOP.

Leadership & People Responsibilities

·       Set clear priorities and objectives for the team, and brief and manage the production of content, proof points, thought leadership and design.

·       Manage team performance and accountability, and support the development of capability and talent within the team.

·       Collaborate with the Customer Marketing, Performance Marketing, Sales and Customer Success functiona to make sure brand and communications activity supports commercial goals.

·       Champion First Mile's brand, values and B Corp commitments internally, and promote a positive, inclusive and supportive team culture.

Key Measures of Success

·       Brand-driven leads: inbound leads and revenue attributed to the brand and search channel, growing from 2,600 leads / £530k in 2026 to 4,493 leads / £916k by 2029.

·       Inbound large tenders (£100k+): Enterprise and Public Sector tender opportunities growing from 10 in 2026 to 96 by 2029, with the associated revenue pipeline.

·       Referral rate: share of new business won through customer referral growing from 6% to 16%.

·       Earned coverage: share of visibility from earned (press/PR) versus paid channels growing from 5% to 35%.

·       Share of Voice: visibility against competitors in search volume tracked for London, Birmingham and nationally, with national Share of Voice growing from 6% to 20%.

·       Customer sentiment: NPS improving from -6 to +30, Trustpilot score from 4.3 to 4.6 and LinkedIn followers from 15,000 to 100,000.

·       A strong, active relationship network across trade bodies, BIDs, national groups, resellers, public-sector bodies and media, with a clear events, awards and PR calendar delivered within budget.

·       A clearly defined Group brand proposition and architecture, with brand integration delivered effectively for each acquisition.

Requirements

What You'll Bring

Essential

Experience

·       Proven experience in a senior brand, communications, PR or partnerships role, ideally in a B2B environment.

·       A track record of building and developing relationships with trade bodies, industry associations, public-sector organisations or media that have raised a brand's profile and delivered commercial results.

·       Experience leading and developing a team, including content and design specialists.

·       Experience owning