Strategic Placements Propel Tech Enterprise's Growth & Market Expansion

Our client is a highly unique founder-led tech enterprise, working to provide over 2 billion consumers in emerging markets access to life-changing products. In their work across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, they serve communities in need via a last-mile distribution platform that redefines how products like solar home systems and entry-level smartphones are provided, making them more accessible. 

Headquartered in San Francisco with international reach and distribution, the client’s co-founders recognized the need for globally-minded and experienced commercial leadership on two fronts. First, to build out their growing sales team in their core geographic markets with more significant experience and leadership for their sales operations, primarily centered in Central Africa – and second, to drive the development of their future go-to-market plans and partnership strategy at the global level. Having reached a critical inflection point in revenue and infrastructure scale and following close on the heels of their series B raise, the client sought to add the experienced commercial leadership necessary to drive growth in their core markets and accelerate the path toward a potential exit.

Given their unique model and global infrastructure, both a Chief Growth Officer with the requisite partnership building, sales, and M&A experience was required to lead the necessary inorganic growth discussions across EMEA and the Americas, as well as a Chief Commercial Officer to build and develop the sales team and lead the organic growth in core markets was required.  As a highly unique, culturally diverse, international social enterprise as the client is, and with the CCO being the most senior on-the-ground leader for their core operation in Kenya, the scope of the role and the background required, especially here, was anything but straightforward.

With a globally coordinated team across the Americas, Europe, and Africa, N2Growth set out to build multiple, robust candidate pipelines in parallel across the two roles. Following an in-depth search process covering three continents and over 900 candidates, the N2Growth team quickly identified and placed two highly diverse and experienced leaders in the roles. 

In just over 100 days, the candidate joined as the Chief Growth Officer. Coming from Millicom and TACA, they brought a varied functional commercial leadership, partnership building, and strategic planning experience base that has proven to be precisely the skillset required to accelerate the client’s partnership development. Strategically situated in London, the candidate’s network of relationships and geographic access across the continent has also proven vital in expanding its global presence and overall access.

For the COO, the client required a seasoned leader who could instantly establish credibility with their diverse team, pivot across cultural and global borders, and was a ‘mission fit’ for their cause. Following a highly coordinated intercontinental effort with our N2Growth team positioned across Europe and Africa – managed directly by our global leadership team in the Americas working alongside the US-based cofounders, the search team saw the candidate join the organization just two months later. With a background spanning both early-stage fintech and prominent tech enterprise leadership with nearly a decade at Microsoft around the African continent, Adefolu brought the diversity of experience and cultural perspective crucial to the commercial organization of the client as they continue to scale their impact.

In under six months, both placed candidates successfully developed a new commercial direction and go-to-market for the enterprise, entering multiple new markets and expanding their sales team to serve a growing consumer base.

The organization’s growth and development ultimately led their Co-founder and CTO to a comfort level sufficient to exit and move to his next venture.  This further provided the opportunity to rescope the technology and engineering function for the global enterprise. Given how much change the organization had experienced in the first ten years, and being a role previously filled at the founder level, the scope and background required were much more complex – and N2Growth stepped in once more to further the development of the client’s senior leadership team with this position with a world-class placement.

Following a highly coordinated national search effort, N2Growth placed this candidate in less than three months. They brought experience managing tech platform growth at multiple levels, from early stage to multi-billion dollar enterprise, successfully pivoted from strictly for-profit to highly-mission-centered work, and actively sought to continue in the social entrepreneurship space. Having led tech innovation at the likes of Capital One, served as Chief Architect at a prominent Silicon Valley bank, and also served as CTO of a fintech enterprise serving small and minority-owned businesses, The candidate brought not only the technical skills required but the versatility necessary to serve as the CTO the organization needs today and well into their coming decade of expansion