This business built the investment platform that sits behind other firms' products. Its first focus was advice firms, but it quickly saw a bigger opportunity in digital challengers and large enterprise clients, who wanted the architecture without having to build it themselves.
That was a very different sale, and it needed someone to lead it.
The role
A Head of Growth, leading that push beyond advice firms and winning large enterprise clients. Those deals take longer and involve far more people on the client's side, from product and technology to compliance, legal and procurement, and every one of them has a view.
Why it was hard
When I ran this search, white-labelled platform infrastructure was still early, and selling it to big, institutional-style clients was relatively new. Very few people had done it.
The people who'd sold platforms to advisers knew the product but not how a large enterprise buys. The people who knew enterprise sales often didn't understand how an investment platform works underneath. The client needed both, and on paper that pool barely existed.
How I mapped it
This was a retained search. I mapped the whole market, including people selling other kinds of financial infrastructure to the same digital clients, and worked from a longlist down to a shortlist of five.
The outcome
The person hired came from an open banking infrastructure business, selling APIs to digital banks and fintechs. They hadn't sold an investment platform before, but they knew how those clients buy technology, who signs it off and how long it takes, and they already had the relationships.
What it taught me
I went in expecting the answer to be someone who'd sold investment platforms. The best fit had sold something else entirely to the same clients, and the platform knowledge was the easier part to learn. I look well beyond the obvious pool on searches like this now.