Chief Marketing Officer Executive Search (CMO)

A VC-backed education technology startup founded to create digital solutions for universities to accelerate their digital transformations and enable a successful online experience engaged N2Growth for their first Chief Marketing Officer Executive Search.

Our client had an SVP of Marketing critical to the organization’s success, but their strengths were in digital marketing. It was clear to the co-founders that the organization needed a full-scope Chief Marketing Officer to lead the entire marketing department and a senior leader to be a trusted advisor to the President. The SVP of Marketing was promoted to the Chief Digital Marketing Officer position and would ultimately report to the future Chief Marketing Officer.

In addition to internal complexities within the marketing department, it was clear that our client had a sense of urgency to fill the Chief Marketing Officer position quickly because many universities moved to online classes for the fall semester due to the pandemic.

Our client, a fast-growing startup whose technology and services platforms deliver customized, integrated online education solutions, helping universities meet the changing needs of students, faculty, and programs, required the addition of a Chief Marketing Officer to manage the company’s overall brand, to include marketing for all of their products and services during a time of rapid growth in their industry.

Given the company’s current position in the market, they needed a Chief Marketing Officer who would come in and help grow the business 250% in the next 28 months. In finding the client’s first CMO, N2Growth was pivotal in quickly identifying industries to recruit from where a marketing leader would have the necessary experiences to succeed in a B2B and B2C business.

By heavily investing time, energy, and resources at the beginning of the search and by gaining clear insight into what our client was looking for in their first Chief Marketing Officer through our calibration exercise, our team was able to recruit the candidate that would ultimately get the position and introduce that candidate to our client in first 12 days of the search. The candidate had multiple competing opportunities that were further along in the process. Still, the N2Growth team set up an initial interview with the client three days after the introduction. An employment agreement was executed in just 39 days from the calibration exercise, with multiple other fully qualified candidates still under consideration.

The insights the N2Growth team gained through the calibration exercise led to a chief marketing officer’s successful recruitment and placement that exceeded all expectations.