Chief Marketing Officer | Global Ratings, Data, Research and Analytical Solutions Provider

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Tasked with finding a senior marketing leader for a top-tier financial services analytics and research provider, NGS Global found an exceptional diversity candidate ideally positioned to take our client’s brand and positioning forward.

Background

Our client was the world’s foremost provider of ratings, data, research, and analytics, driven by their mission of making capital and commodity markets function better. They have delivered independent opinions, actionable insights, and analytical solutions to over 100,000 customers in the financial services sector globally. Their businesses operated in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Poland, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Need

Our client was seeking to bring in a new global leader for marketing and communications, a critical and influential role, to be part of their leadership team. The Chief Marketing Officer would be a strategic advisor for all matters related to brand, digital marketing, media management, crisis communications, and internal communications. S/he needed to infuse fresh energy into their brand, especially from the perspective of markets outside of India, and help consolidate a number of brands that had come into the corporate fold by virtue of acquisitions in the preceding few years.

The client was looking for an accomplished leader who had in-depth experience in building B2B brands at a global level, and preferably, in the world of research, insights or analytical solutions. The candidate would have to create a framework and go-to-market strategy encompassing the firm’s communication principles, business drivers and messaging approaches targeting current and potential clients, influencers, and internal staff, in order to clearly position the company as a thought leader in the space.

S/he also had to develop and implement an enterprise-wide website monetization strategy aligned to their business growth objectives. The expectation was to lead cross-functional and cross-cultural teams with excellent influencer and media relationship building capabilities globally. S/he would build social media engagement and loyalty within the limitations of regulatory compliances that required a creative and innovative approach in a highly competitive business environment.

There was also a very strong preference for diversity candidates as part of the project.

Our Search Process

The search was particularly challenging as our client were looking for a diversity candidate with a strong track record in building the marketing function for a company that operated in global markets. Additionally, the potential candidates had to have robust influencer relationships in markets like the US and the UK, as well as a string of successful B2B campaigns under their wings.

After an extensive investigative exercise that targeted over 200 candidates, across all India-based analytics/ research services companies, tech service providers and outsourcing companies, who had shown significant growth in global markets with noteworthy marketing campaigns, we built a comprehensive long list of a diverse pool of candidates. After multiple interview rounds and leadership assessments, there were two finalist candidates, of whom one was successfully offered the position.

Our NGS Global Value-Add

• Close alignment to and understanding of the client’s needs, and the critical elements which will make the winning candidate successful

• A first-principles approach to drawing up the search strategy, following an in-depth study of the client’s offerings and their market space, and extensive research to identify candidates with relevant experience and track record. Since this was a marketing leadership role, we visited the candidates’ current employers’ websites to see how effective these were, and researched any noteworthy marketing campaigns that they may have executed

• Close engagement with our client throughout the project enabled us to continuously refine our candidate evaluation process, thus ensuring that we presented only the most relevant candidates for the client’s consideration

• Partner-led search execution to ensure that we were able to get passive job seekers to consider the opportunity.

Contact Deepti Jethanandani (Project Lead)

More about our Executive Search service