The Context
Our client is a high technology oncology business operating at the forefront of innovation within their field. When our partnership began more than 4 years ago the business was over 10 years old, with a market leading technology and an ambitious CEO looking to build out the organisation to let the product to reach as many physicians and patients as possible.
Through a number of key hires in strategic leadership functions Guided Solutions has helped to catalyse growth in almost all areas of the business, enabling further investment in talent, R&D and global market access. Since the beginning of the relationship, headcount has increased by more than 150% alongside exponential global revenue growth of 900%.
The Campaign: Key hires and outcomes
Global Sales
The first key hire the business made through Guided Solutions was a VP of Global Sales. At the time of the appointment the US arm of the business dominated commercial activity. The CEO intended, through the new VP, to redress this imbalance and open up key markets in Europe and beyond. Four years later the VP is still in place and has grown the OUS sales organisation from one (himself) to 15 international sales leaders, enabling OUS sales to match and surpass the US in terms of revenue for the last two years.
Research and Development
The CEO, as one of the inventors of the core technology, remained heavily involved in R&D whilst the business was still small enough in scale. With the commercial successes and subsequent expansion delivered by the new VP Global Sales, the CEO was no longer able to devote the necessary time and resource to the R&D function. Therefore, we were tasked with identifying and recruiting a new VP Product Development.
After a long search we were able to identify a candidate capable of meeting the expectations that the CEO had set for himself over so many years. The VP of Product Development, along with the CTO and a small R&D team, made great strides in the usability of the core technology and also in the identification of potential new applications for it. Commercial success enabled the business to greatly expand the R&D function and fully explore the potential the team had identified. Guided Solutions helped the business to identify 10+ Software Engineers from across the globe, including relocators from Hawaii and Russia to help the R&D team realise their vision.
Marketing
As much as this period can be characterised by financial growth, it can also be seen as a continuing process of sophistication in the strategies and tactics pursued across the business. Nowhere has this evolution been more evident than in the attitude towards marketing. As one of the first handful of new hires made, the new VP Marketing has overseen a paradigm shift in internal attitudes. Prior to their arrival marketing existed mainly in ad-hoc promotional activities, without measures of success or a clear and coherent mission. The new VP Marketing brought with them ideas for directly targeting a global customer base in a sustained way through utilisation of communications tools, educational content generation as well as aggressive pursuit of Market Access in key emerging markets.
The early outputs of these initiatives, demonstrating clear return on investment enabled the VP to build out the department from one to eight persons in functions including Content Marketing, Market Access and Strategic Alliance building.
In total, Guided Solutions have been responsible for more than 75 hires across the business and continue to support further growth plans for the future. Over and above a market leading technology, what is clear is that the primary stimulus for development has been the identification of truly exceptional leaders who have clearly reflected the ambitions of the business and worked tirelessly, and often autonomously to achieve them.
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