Regional Sales Director US, Global Cyber Security
The client is a software company headquartered in California; they specialise in cyber security solutions for Fortune 500 companies and federal organisations.
The Client
The client is a software company headquartered in California; they specialise in cyber security solutions for Fortune 500 companies and federal organisations. When Collingwood engaged with them, they had been recently acquired by a global industrial technology corporation, after a period of being private-equity backed. The business had been in existence for 30 years and had enjoyed phenomenal success throughout the 90’s and 00’s thanks to their flagship product. However, in recent years, growth had stalled.
The company had suffered from a period of under-investment, especially in the product development area, which the new parent set out to address immediately. They also renewed the senior commercial leadership team with internal moves, however, they needed to recruit externally to appoint a Regional Sales Director for their largest region, the US East Coast. Collingwood was selected to partner them due to our extensive track record of appointing US commercial leaders on behalf of the parent company.
The Role
The client was looking for a seasoned sales leader from a cyber security or enterprise software background. They required highly developed leadership skills to manage a diverse team in terms of their level of experience, style and individual needs. Adding to this, they were looking for an individual with a consistent track record of growing market share, complex deals and the ability to master sophisticated sales processes.
The region was deemed to be an area of significant untapped potential and they were looking for the new leader to double the revenue in the region within a two to three-year period.
About the author
Having started his career in Executive Search in 1998, Doug set up Collingwood in 2005 alongside his wife, Claire Mackay.
Read more >Share
The Solution
Collingwood first conducted a thorough brief with the client to get a full grasp of their strategy, culture and key experience requirements. As the company was re-engineering their growth and had built a brand new product pipeline to complement their flagship product, it was indeed critical to build a strong story to relay to potential candidates, whose knowledge of the organisation could be outdated. Also, as the client wanted to attract top talent from market-leading organisations, we also put together a detailed delivery plan, outlining Collingwood and our client’s key actions. This allowed us to create a smooth process and mitigate delays in a market where good candidates can be courted by multiple prospective employers.
The Result
Collingwood identified and targeted in excess of 100 candidates and submitted a shortlist of five candidates within six weeks of initial commission. The market for good candidates is especially competitive in the sector and we were able to be successful thanks to the strong proposition we had developed in collaboration with the client. Adding to this, we invested time to understand candidates’ drivers and build strong relationships with them to best support them throughout the recruitment process.
Following several client interviews, a candidate was appointed from Symantec. Collingwood supported both the client and the candidate through to his successful on-boarding and we are now in discussions with him to support him with the growth of his regional team.
