About the client
An AI SaaS company, post-Series A and scaling its go-to-market function.
The challenge
Building a partner program from scratch inside a post-Series A SaaS company is a specific brief. The client needed someone comfortable working at an earlier stage while still holding the commercial credibility to open enterprise doors. Three independent hiring attempts had already gone to market with no hire made, and there was no partner infrastructure or partner-attach revenue in place at the time of the search.
The journey
The relationship began with a first meeting with the client’s CEO, where partnerships as a revenue channel entered early conversations. The business chose to build out its direct revenue function first, hiring a VP of Sales before turning to partnerships, having been entirely founder-led on revenue up to that point. The client then went to market on partnerships three times across the year without finding the right profile.
Throughout that period we stayed close to the CEO, making introductions to potential BPO partners long before a fee was ever on the table. A candidate in our own network, confidentially exploring their next move, was introduced, and the hire closed within weeks. We spent twenty-one months building that relationship before the placement closed.
The candidate
The person placed wasn’t actively on the market and came through our own network while confidentially exploring their next move. At a prior SaaS company, they had built a partner program entirely from the ground up, scaling it to represent thirty percent of overall revenue.
On paper, the step up in deal size and sales motion from their prior role looked like a stretch, but the CEO saw past the numbers. They brought conscientiousness, shown through structured, disciplined execution and strong tenure across previous roles, along with real influence, the charisma and technical credibility to drive a partner program in rooms where they didn’t yet have formal authority. They also came in at a budget that gave the business room to build sustainably, a long-term bet on the right foundations.
What made this work
Staying close to the CEO through two years of shifting priorities, failed searches, and evolving briefs, without pressuring the relationship into a premature placement, is what kept us front of mind when the right moment came.
Making BPO introductions kept the relationship warm and trust high, long before there was any fee on the table.
The candidate placed was never on the market. They only surfaced because of a network built over years spent working in the partnerships space.
The CEO prioritised conscientiousness and influence over a perfect match on paper, and our job was to identify those qualities and make the case for them clearly.