Recruitment of a Solutions Sales Director, CPG

THE CLIENT

A global industrial connectivity leader, offering end to end hardware and software solutions to organisations looking to make the most of Industrial IoT, Industry 4.0 and other technology trends. A well-established market leader with a track record of developing market leading talent.

THE ROLE

After a sustained period of growth our client has invested significant amounts of money to ensure the foundations for sustained success. By conducting thorough research of the market, it was identified that the Consumer-Packaged Goods vertical offered vast amounts of opportunity.

Having already invested significantly in building a first-class sales team, our client felt the need to look at external talent to embrace a fresh approach to customers in this space. Based in the US the candidate would combine a strong understanding of this market, with an “outside the box” mentality and the capability to execute on new ideas and strategy.

A director level position, it was clear that the successful candidate needed to demonstrate a mixture of strategy and execution, with the runway to progress into senior leadership seen as a significant bonus.

THE SOLUTION

This position was the first external hire in a new “enhanced sales team” meaning it was critical that we worked closely with our client to produce a go to market message and supporting collateral that would attract the very best talent. Following a detailed briefing meeting a full assignment specification, along with social advertisements were created.

Following aN exhaustive search, we identified a strong talent pool of candidates across the USA, all demonstrating the critical skills and experience required. With the focus to the CPG vertical being new, and the lack of a thorough track record/story in this space, we worked closely with our client before approaching the candidate, ensuring that we had all the collateral and information needed to create a compelling story about the “opportunity” that this role presented. This included PowerPoint presentations and even a promotional video, highlighting the career prospects when working for our client.

As we always do, we engaged with our client in a very transparent manner. Collaboration is key! Bi-weekly update calls with our client ensured the search always remained on track and gave us the opportunity to re steer if needed. We made strong use of our candidate management portal to share progress, allowing our client to understand the market, and make informed decisions as we progressed through the search process.

This appointment was made through Collingwood’s executive search work in the technology sector.