How to Sell to a Head of Growth (Using LeadOcean Data)

A Head of Growth owns a number, usually signups, activation or pipeline, and buys anything that moves it within a quarter. Sell to that number, reach them by work email, and open with their funnel. This guide covers the role, the buying committee and the list build.

TL;DR

• A Head of Growth is a budget holder with a short horizon. Lead with a metric, not a feature list.
• The list takes about 20 minutes to build. Sizing is free, and a 25-person test pull spends 25 records.
• On 2026-10-21 LeadOcean counted 6,016 mailable people titled "Head of Growth" across four sales regions. Free gives you 1,000 records, no card.

Prerequisites

• A LeadOcean account: free signup, no card.
• An API key exported as $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY.
• curl and jq, or any HTTP client.
• A one-line description of the metric you move, written before you build the list.

What a Head of Growth cares about

The title varies by company, but the job is the same. They own the growth model: acquisition, activation, retention and the experiments that move each.

Expect three pressures. First, a target tied to revenue or active users. Second, a small team, so every tool must save engineering or analyst hours. Third, a stack they already distrust, because every new tool adds a data source to reconcile.

That shapes what works.

• Proof inside one quarter. They plan in sprints. Offer a result they can see in weeks.
• Low integration cost. If it needs a data engineer, it dies in backlog.
• A named metric. Say "activation rate" or "paid conversion", not "growth".
• Evidence from peers. Do not invent any. Use only results you can show.

Where they sit in the buying committee

A Head of Growth is rarely the only signer. They are usually the champion or the budget owner for tools under a set spend, and they pull in others for anything touching data or spend above it.

Reach the Head of Growth first, and put one peer from the table in the same account. A second thread means one ignored email does not end the account. Sourcing the second contact is in Step 3.

How to size a Head of Growth account before you spend

Counts tell you where to start. Mailable Heads of Growth skew to North America and Europe, which together hold about three quarters of the mailable total on 2026-10-21. APAC is under a sixth and LATAM is the thinnest at 369.

Pick one region first. A list of 500 with a tight opener beats 6,016 with a generic one. Sort the region by company size next: add employeeRange as an array, for example ["51-200","201-500"]. Small and mid-size companies are where the Head of Growth is the buyer, not a delegate.

Then split by what you sell. If your product serves product-led companies, add technologies for the analytics or CRM tool you integrate with. Counts with those filters stay free, so test three variants and keep the one with the best ratio of mailable people to distinct employers.

Common mistakes when selling to a Head of Growth

• Selling the category. They have heard "growth platform" for years. Name the single step you fix.
• Asking for a demo first. Ask a question they can answer in one line, then offer a short call.
• Skipping the second thread. A single contact at a company that ignores you ends the account. A peer from RevOps or Data keeps it alive.
• Emailing unverified addresses. A bounce hurts the next send. Filter on emailStatus and read it on the record.
• Sending the same line to every region. A US startup and a German scale-up measure growth differently.

Step 1: Size the audience by region (free)

Counts spend no records. Send count=true as a query parameter with limit=1; the body stays flat JSON with arrays for filters. The response carries meta.total and meta.countOnly.

for region in NORAM EMEA APAC LATAM; do
  echo -n "$region: "
  curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search?count=true" \
    -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"title\":[\"Head of Growth\"],\"salesRegion\":[\"$region\"],\"emailStatus\":[\"verified\",\"catch_all_valid\",\"catch_all\"],\"limit\":1}" \
    | jq '.meta.total'
done

This REST count keeps only the three statuses you passed (verified, catch_all_valid and catch_all), the same set the MCP count uses by default. Drop emailStatus and you get everyone with the title, reachable or not.

Step 2: Check the enum values before you filter

Enum filters are exact strings. A wrong value returns an empty page, not an error.

curl -s "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/enums" -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" | jq 'keys'

Use jobLevel values such as C-Team, VP and Director, and lowercase seniority values such as head, vp and director. The MCP tool leadocean_list_enum_values returns the same lists.

Step 3: Pull the Head of Growth and one peer

Pull 25 people per region as a test. Add a second title to get the peer from the committee table. Page with cursor when you scale up.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "title": ["Head of Growth", "VP Growth", "Director of Growth"],
    "salesRegion": ["NORAM"],
    "emailStatus": ["verified", "catch_all_valid", "catch_all"],
    "limit": 25
  }' | jq '.meta, (.data | length)'

This spends up to 25 records. Reading meta.distinctCompanies on a count tells you how many employers the list spans, which sets how many accounts you can run two threads in.

Step 4: Enrich and verify before you send

If you have a LinkedIn URL from a referral or an event list, enrich it. Enrich takes exactly one of linkedin_url, email, phone or person_id. Set reveal_email to get the address.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.leadocean.io/v1/people/enrich" \
  -H "x-api-key: $LEADOCEAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-doe-example","reveal_email":true}'

Since October 2026 the enrich response includes career history under resume_data: past roles, education and certifications when held. A Head of Growth who came from a sales or product role gives you a second angle for the first line. An enrichment that finds nothing is a 404 and costs nothing.

Read email_status before you send. There is no refund for bounces.

Step 5: Write first lines tied to their funnel

Use the career data and the company's stage to make one specific claim. Placeholders below, swap in your own facts.

Jane, Acme's pricing page changed in September. Did trial-to-paid move?
We help growth teams see which step of onboarding loses people. [Your proof here]

Jane, you went from lifecycle at Beta Co to growth at Acme. Most teams
at that switch inherit three analytics tools. Want a one-page audit?

Jane, Acme is hiring two growth PMs. That usually means the experiment
backlog is the bottleneck. We cut setup time on [your product].

Rules that hold across all three: name one metric, make one claim you can back, ask one small question. Skip the pitch deck in the first message.

A four-touch sequence that fits their week

Heads of Growth read email in short bursts between experiment reviews. Keep each touch under 90 words and change the angle each time.

1. Day 1, the metric. One line on the funnel step you improve, one question.
2. Day 4, the peer. Send the same idea to the second contact at the account, framed for their role.
3. Day 9, the evidence. Share one result you can show, with its source. If you have none yet, share a short teardown of their public pricing or signup flow.
4. Day 15, the exit. Say you will stop writing, and leave one link.

Track replies by region from Step 1. If NORAM replies at twice the rate of EMEA, move spend there before you widen the list.

What you get

The sizing counts are real. They came from the free leadocean_count_leads tool on 2026-10-21, title "Head of Growth", mailable defaults (verified, catch_all_valid or catch_all).

The total is the sum of the four regions, and distinct employers may overlap across regions, so the last cell is an upper bound. Fewer than half of the title matches are mailable, so size on the mailable column.

This is the shape of a person record from the search call. It is the response shape from the API reference, with placeholder values.

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "profile_data": { "profile_full_name": "Jane Doe" },
      "contact_data": {
        "has_email": true,
        "email_status": "verified",
        "email_type": "work"
      },
      "meta": { "source_ids": { "person_id": "1234567890" } }
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "count": 1, "limit": 25, "nextCursor": "CURSOR" }
}

Search rows carry identity, current role, company and the email flags, but no addresses. The person_id for enrich sits at meta.source_ids.person_id.

Troubleshooting

FAQ