When our client, a leading US brand, decided to launch their own online platform to drive revenue, they knew they needed someone who could lead the company through this transition. The founder of the company had been shuttling between countries to manage many things at a time that was weaning his time away from key strategic decisions. There was a burning need to identify a technology leader who could co-own responsibilities of the founder and that’s how we were retained for hiring a Chief Technology Officer.
The role required the leader to ensure that the technology platform, partnerships, and external relationships are all well aligned with the business strategy. He/She will be responsible to identify, compare, evaluate, and implement technology solutions to meet current and future needs of our client. The CTO will develop, track, and control the development of annual operating and capital budgets. We knew they were looking for a reliable leader who had a high risk appetite and ability to make right decisions in the best interests of the company.

As we had experience in closing similar searches, we had a ready network of passive leaders who had expressed their interest to receive regular updates on exciting opportunities. This made our search a little easier to have a quick connect with our network of technology leaders. There was interest created by many candidates, but opted out considering the lean team size they have to manage and scope of the work, to redo everything from scratch. In addition to this, pandemic stress was in the air, there was an inherent fear to switch jobs amongst those we approached from large organizations. These reasons did not compel us to lose hope, instead challenged our research team and delivery team to cast a wider net to identify leaders. Their continuous engagement with prospects through regular phone calls, emails, meetings, and one-on-one conversations helped us narrow down the list of qualified candidates within days of starting the search. Our client succeeded in hiring the right executive leader, who is a technologist at heart.