Sales and Marketing Director | Online Learning Institution

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Tasked with finding a commercially savvy leader with considerable digital smarts, NGS Global’s team in Iberia secured a standout candidate who was promoted six months after commencing the role.

Background

With a presence in more than 90 countries, our client was an online university, and a pioneer in the field of digital education. Their remote learning solutions provide students with flexible and accessible opportunities to study for a wide range of degrees, postgraduate certificates, and doctorates.

The Need

Just as our client was experiencing a COVID-induced boom in interest for remote learning and education, their sales and marketing executive left. Concurrently, the pandemic was pushing traditional universities into the digital environment, and our client wanted to maintain their competitive edge with additional innovations, offerings and acquisitions.

They needed a visionary ‘digital-first’ leader with strong experience of the industry, who was going to be able to both restructure and lead the key department of the business. Importantly, the client placed an emphasis on finding someone with a long-term commitment to the company, who had previously held a senior role focused on performance marketing.

Finally, speed was an important metric – the COVID-induced contextual market opportunity at the time meant that the role had to be filled immediately.

Strategy and Approach

We used a methodical process to first identify leading tech and digital services firms, like Amazon, Glovo, Cabify, Uber, and many more. The primary criterion for filtering candidates was having held an upper management position focused on performance marketing, and we emphasized profiles with experience in robust, analytical and business-oriented commercial processes with demonstrable ROI.

After an intensive and focused research process, we built an extensive shortlist of over 100 candidates. We made sure to examine each candidate's compatibility with the soft skills required for the position, because the role constituted a hefty communication and organizational challenge.

During the selection process, we maintained constant contact with both the candidates and client to ensure the needs, expectations and requirements of both parties were aligned. Importantly, we also ensured that the candidates' interest in the role went beyond just the remuneration package.

A winning candidate was selected quickly and efficiently. In the first few months, we liaised with both the successful candidate and the client to guarantee a solid onboarding process, and regularly checked in with both throughout the induction period. These actions raised the prospect of long-term candidate retention and loyalty.

The placement was inordinately successful – they were promoted to Deputy General Business Manager within six months.

Our NGS Global Value-Add

• Partner-led search execution that helped identify relevant and highly-qualified external talent that were potentially suitable for the role.

• Sophisticated, customized, and targeted research which ensured the talent pool was large but highly relevant.

• Speed of execution which ensured an exceptional leader was appointed in a timely fashion, and faster than client expectation.

Contact Fernando Zavala (Project Lead)

Client Testimonials