2026 · Hired CEO

CEO · a Ukrainian IT services company with about 100 people, serving clients in the US, UK, Israel and MENA

A hired CEO with full P&L ownership and hands-on Western-market sales, after the founders moved from founder-led sales to a professional leadership model.

Search Overview

The Challenge

The founders wanted to step back from personal client acquisition and turn a headcount-based outstaffing business into solution-led offerings. They needed a CEO who would own P&L, sell personally in the US, UK and EU, and lead the transformation. The market for this profile is thin: in our mapping, 30 to 40% of strong candidates ran their own companies and would not take a hired role, about 30% lived in the US, and only 15 to 25% were realistic to approach. The package of base salary, profit share and equity also had to compete with steadier corporate offers.

What VP Team Did

We started with a calibration session with the founders, then mapped IT services companies with 200 to 1,500 people in Ukraine. When that pool ran out, we extended the map to Poland and Slovakia. We ran 25+ deep-dive interviews, arranged 14+ meetings between candidates and the founders, and collected 10+ references for the leading finalist. Finalists completed a strategic vision task before the offer stage. In March the strongest finalist received an offer and chose a co-founder opportunity elsewhere, so we went back to the shortlist.

Result

In May 2026 a candidate with B2B IT services sales experience, P&L ownership and a record of business transformation accepted the offer and started on 1 July. After she joined, the company opened a Head of Growth & New Business role to build out the commercial team.

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