Case Study
Providing Executive Search for a Chief Technology Officer at a Global SaaS Firm
The Challenge
The client is a global SaaS company providing booking and distribution solutions to businesses in the travel and leisure sector. With over 80 employees across three international offices, the business was experiencing tremendous growth and needed to strengthen its technology leadership. The founding CTO, who had architected much of the original platform, was transitioning out of the role.
With ongoing platform migrations and the need to scale infrastructure, the company required a new leader who could:
Drive the technical vision in alignment with commercial goals
Build and inspire a growing engineering team
Modernise the technology stack to support rapid scaling
Bring strong stakeholder management and emotional intelligence to the executive table
The brief initially focused on finding a Chief Product & Technology Officer, but as the search unfolded, it became clear the business required a technically strong leader with proven experience modernising SaaS platforms while balancing product priorities.
Our Expertise
Onset commenced with identifying technology leaders with exposure to similar scaling challenges across SaaS businesses. Factors we considered included:
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Team size and maturity
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Target customer base (B2B/B2C SaaS)
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Industry sector relevance (travel, hospitality, fintech, healthtech, edutech)
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Technical expertise in cloud migration and SaaS modernisation
The Solution
Broad candidate sourcing
Engaged a targeted pool of senior technology leaders (CTOs, GMs, Heads of Technology) using their network, research team, referrals, and sourcing tools for comprehensive market coverage.Brief refinement and prioritisation
Collaborated with the client to evolve the candidate brief, focusing on strong technical depth, leadership and the ability to balance commercial, product, and technology strategy.High-Calibre Shortlist Delivery
Presented a refined shortlist of highly qualified candidates based on the updated criteria.Successful Placement
Facilitated interviews, resulting in one exceptional candidate being selected for the final executive appointment.The Impact
The appointed CTO brought extensive experience across multiple SaaS industries, including fintech, healthtech, and edutech. Their arrival delivered immediate benefits:
A renewed sense of confidence and morale across the engineering team
Strategic clarity for the executive team on scaling technology infrastructure
A trusted leader capable of guiding the business through its next stage of growth
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