Job Description

Chief Commercial Officer

Application Deadline: 18 October 2026

Department: Executive Team

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Liphook (Office-Based)

Description

Job Type: Full Time, permanent role. Senior Leader

Role Level: Senior Leadership (SLT Team)

Reports to: Managing Director, UK

Location: Office based, Hampshire UK

Rocksteady Music School is the UK’s largest rock and pop school. Our mission is simple: to amplify children’s self belief and remove barriers to music education.

Across 5,000 primary schools, children learn to play in Rocksteady bands, build confidence, make friends and discover what they are capable of. For many, it is their first meaningful experience of music - and for us, that matters enormously.

Our business has grown rapidly because our staff work with speed, passion and purpose to deliver a high quality and consistent experience for the pupils we teach . Schools value it, families engage with it and children love it. Rocksteady has become the clear market leader while holding tightly to the values that shaped it from the beginning: inclusion, self-belief, resilience, teamwork, passion and purpose.

There is a strong commercial instinct running through our organisation and over the last decade have consistently been one of the fastest growing businesses in the world – all organically. We are proud that our 'for profit, for good': commercial success enables us to reach more children, invest in quality and build something that can keep growing and create lasting impact.

The Opportunity

Rocksteady already has a successful model and a strong position in the UK. But the UK is just the beginning and business has a strong commitment to take the magic of Rocksteady to many more children, wherever they are in the world.

As we stand today there are significant strategic opportunities to grow and build even more commercial resilience in the model. For the right person this is a chance to strategically review areas of new opportunities, from better supporting our sales teams, data driven retention strategies, price optimisation, to further commercialisation.

At the same time, we believe there are meaningful new sources of growth to discover through new propositions, partnerships, funding models, and further international expansion.

We are appointing our first Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) to support the strategic review of these areas and lead the implementation plan.

Overview of the role

Reporting to the Managing Director - UK, the CCO will have two equally important mandates: maximise the commercial performance and potential of the existing operation, and identify and deliver meaningful new sources of revenue growth.

You will take executive responsibility for Sales and Schools Experience, working through an established senior team. This is not a role designed to absorb the day-to-day operation of those functions. Your job will be to set direction, identify the biggest commercial gaps and opportunities, develop capability and ensure the right strategy, support, systems, insight and performance disciplines are in place.

Alongside this, a significant proportion of your capacity will be deliberately focused beyond today's operation.

We expect the CCO to spend approximately half of their time identifying, evaluating and delivering completely new opportunities that can materially contribute to the long-term success of the business.

You will also build a close and productive partnership with the rest of the executive leadership team to operate as a joined-up system with shared visibility, clear accountability and strong commercial challenge.

What you will be responsible for

1. Maximise the existing commercial operation

• Set the commercial strategy for Sales and Schools Experience and translate it into clear priorities, measures and accountabilities which ensure both quality for our schools and continued robust commercial performance.
• Lead through the established senior team to support continued improvement rather than becoming the day-to-day operator of either function.
• Understand the end-to-end commercial funnel, from demand and pipeline through conversion, school relationships, retention and lifetime value, and identify the highest-value opportunities for improvement.
• Ensure the functions have the right recruitment, training, systems, CRM, analysis, reporting and performance management to scale effectively.
• Use commercial insight to improve school conversion, retention, and market penetration.
• Oversee disciplined forecasting and performance visibility so that opportunities, risks and interventions are understood early.
• Use school and customer insight to further improve proposition, experience and wider business priorities.

1. Build the next engines of growth

A defining part of this role will be looking beyond the performance of today's operation and asking where Rocksteady's next meaningful sources of growth will come from.

• Identify and quantify material growth opportunities across the existing market, adjacent markets and new routes to revenue.
• Explore opportunities including pricing and tiering, new propositions, partnerships, customer or funding models, new segments and routes to market, developing robust commercial cases and proposals.
• Design intelligent tests and pilots, learn quickly and move the strongest opportunities from concept into delivery.
• Personally sponsor the most strategically important opportunities until they have the leadership, operating model and momentum required to scale.
• Apply commercial discipline to stop or deprioritise opportunities that are unlikely to create meaningful value.
• Contribute to Rocksteady's longer-term international growth strategy and assess how the commercial model can travel effectively.

1. Operate as an enterprise leader

• Be an active member of the executive leadership team, working in close partnerships to advance Rocksteady's strategy and performance.
• Bring clear, evidence-led commercial thinking to executive and board discussions.
• Build the relationships and alignment needed to mobilise the right support around the most important commercial priorities.
• Create clarity and momentum without building unnecessary central infrastructure or taking ownership away from capable senior leaders.
• Balance ambition with judgement: move quickly where evidence supports it, while protecting Rocksteady's purpose, reputation and customer experience.

What success will look like

The successful CCO will deliver both stronger commercialisation today and more opportunities for tomorrow. Over time, we would expect to see:

• Enhanced commercial performance across conversion, retention, and market penetration.
• Sales and Schools Experience operating with stronger strategy, systems, insight and performance disciplines.
• Joined-up partnerships across Marketing, Sales and Schools Experience building a stronger growth engine.
• A clear, prioritised pipeline of quantified growth opportunities with robust commercial cases behind them.
• New revenue streams and propositions progressing from insight and testing into meaningful commercial contribution.
• Greater confidence across the executive team and Board in where future growth will come from and how investment is being prioritised.

Essential criteria

To succeed as Chief Commercial Officer at Rocksteady, you will bring:

• Significant commercial leadership experience with meaningful ownership of revenue, growth and commercial performance, operating at or working closely with executive and board level.
• A track record of leading and scaling sizeable commercial teams, with a clear view of what excellent sales leadership, development and performance management look like.
• Strong experience in recurring revenue, subscription or similarly retention-focused models, with a sophisticated understanding of acquisition, conversion, churn, retention and customer lifetime value.
• Demonstrable experience identifying, validating and delivering new revenue opportunities beyond simply optimising an existing sales operation - taking opportunities from insight or idea through business case, testing and into meaningful commercial contribution.
• Strong experience developing and executing growth strategies across pricing, segmentation, proposition development, partnerships or new routes to market, with evidence of measurable commercial impact.
• Strong strategic and commercial judgement, including the ability to size markets and opportunities, build robust commercial cases, understand unit economics and prioritise investment against likely return.
• The ability to move confidently between commercial strategy and execution, getting close enough to performance, pipeline, systems and data to understand what is really happening without becoming absorbed in day-to-day operation.
• Strong commercial analytics, forecasting and CRM capability, with the ability to turn insight into action and better decision-making.
• Evidence of leading effectively through established senior leaders - creating clarity, raising standards and enabling others to deliver rather than becoming the solution to every problem.
• The ability to build trust and work exceptionally well across an executive team.
• Genuine belief in Rocksteady's purpose, combined with ambition, low ego, resilience, curiosity and strong commercial drive.

Your previous experience

We are open-minded about where you have built your career. Education, entertainment, children's services, consumer businesses, technology, subscription businesses and other commercially demanding environments could all be relevant.

What matters is the scale and quality of the commercial challenges you have solved: whether you have improved an established revenue engine, created meaningful new sources of growth, led through strong functional leaders and built productive partnerships across an executive team.

Above all, we are looking for someone who combines commercial imagination with commercial discipline - someone excited by the opportunity to help a high-growth, purpose-led business reach many more children.

Terms

• Salary: A competitive executive package will be agreed with the preferred candidate, reflecting their experience and the scope of the role.
• Location: The role will be based full time at Rocksteady's headquarters in Liphook, Hampshire, with occasional travel to Birmingham and elsewhere (typically 1-2 times per month).
• Benefits: The package includes a senior leadership bonus, 28 days' annual leave plus bank holidays and a 35-hour contractual working week.

How to apply

Should you wish to discuss the opportunity further, please email eva.tomka@andersonquigley.com.

Please click on the link below to apply;

Chief Commercial Officer, Rocksteady Music School, UK | AQ Job

Applications close at 12pm on Monday 18th October 2026.

Anderson Quigley is acting as an advisor to Rocksteady Music School. An executive search process is being carried out by Anderson Quigley in addition to the public advertisement.

Additional Information

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and expect all our staff to share this commitment.

As this role involves regular work with children and young people, and meets the definition of regulated activity, it is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 you must disclose all unprotected unspent and spent cautions and convictions. Further details on what convictions must be declared can be found in the Governments Guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975.You can find out more about our policy on recruitment of ex-offenders here.

If you are offered this position, Rocksteady will ask you to complete an enhanced DBS check with a children's barred list check.

It is an offence for an individual who has been barred from working with children to apply for regulated activity. Providing false information is also an offence and could result in the rejection of the applicant, summarily dismissal if selected, and possible referral to the police.

Rocksteady Music School is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to the fair treatment of staff, potential staff, and of our services, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, responsibilities for dependents, age, physical/mental disability, or offending background.

To find out more about Rocksteady, check out our website www.rocksteadymusicschool.com

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