A leading NBFC was looking for a CTO/CIO who could manage a portfolio of transformation initiatives including optimising the group’s technology organisation, implementing a data and analytics driven approach at the management level and importantly, driving a digital overhaul in line with its long term strategic objectives.

The challenge the CEO and COO faced over the half a year that they had been searching was that most traditional CTOs at other FIs were typically experienced in only one and occasionally two of these requirements, and in addition to which there were the usual senior level extraction issues.

We identified the key attributes of the role to include experience in building tech organisations from scratch across both B2B as well as B2C domains as well as a deep understanding of tech and data driven companies. Given the scale of the transformation, it was clear that the new CTO/CIO would need to integrate a start-up approach with the workings and challenges of a large, well established organisation. Rather than focussing on senior personnel in comparable organisations we looked deep inside our network for tech leaders who had start-up experience, as well as experience in similar roles working in organisations that had achieved sufficient scale for them to appreciate how to navigate and get things done in large companies. By using an attribute-based approach rather than limiting ourselves to the usual suspects, we successfully identified and placed a unique candidate from within our network.