Case
A first Head of Marketing for a fintech on a team-lead budget: a wider geography and a hire in 4 months
We found a first Head of Marketing on a team-lead budget by widening the search to niche vendors, Latin America and Europe
An international fintech company (investment software, 100+ people) needed its first Head of Marketing, while the budget matched the market salary of a Marketing Team Lead. The first hypothesis, Marketing Leads from large vendors, did not work, so NEWHR widened the search to niche vendors, Latin America and lower-cost European countries. After 4 months, the offer was accepted by a Marketing Lead at a global software reseller with enterprise-vendor experience.
Request and constraints
The company's first Head of Marketing, who would fit into a team of multilingual founders.
- Experience at B2B software vendors selling to enterprise
- Global markets, excluding APAC
- Technically complex products such as ERP, ideally with a finance focus
- Canada preferred; English-speaking candidates first
The budget was fixed and matched the market salary of a Marketing Team Lead, while the role needed a Head of Marketing.
Why it was hard
The budget was below the level of the role
The company needed a Head of Marketing, while the fixed budget matched a Marketing Team Lead's salary.
The obvious pool was too expensive
At large enterprise vendors, even team leads cost more than the budget allowed.
Little real people management
Because of the matrix structure of large vendors, few Marketing Leads there had actually managed a team.
How we searched
Hypothesis 1: Marketing Leads from large enterprise vendors
We started with the obvious pool: Marketing Leads at the largest enterprise ERP, CRM and cloud vendors. It did not work. Even team leads there were too expensive, and the matrix structure of large vendors meant few of them had actually managed people.
Hypothesis 2: niche vendors, Latin America and Europe
We widened the list of source companies to niche vendors around fintech and ERP, for example in finance automation. The search was extended to Latin America and lower-cost European countries. This hypothesis worked.
The hiring geography was chosen on market data
Where to hire was decided on market data, not on the client's initial preference: Canada had originally been the priority.
Funnel
The market map covered about 50 source companies.
| Stage | Candidates | Conversion from previous stage | Conversion from start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long list: from Lead to CMO | 150 | — | 100% |
| Finalists | 10 | 6.7% | 6.7% |
| Offer accepted | 1 | 10% | 0.7% |
Result
Within 4 months, the offer was accepted by a Marketing Lead at a global software reseller with enterprise-vendor experience.
We turn to NEWHR when we can't fill a role ourselves and need outside expertise and a thorough check of every hypothesis. It works well for us that the agency team works through options for solving the problem within our requirements and constraints, including financial ones.
Client, an international fintech company