2026 · Hired Senior Marketing Manager
Senior Marketing Manager · a European invest-tech SaaS startup · Remote · Europe
First marketing hire. Brief recalibrated from CMO through talent mapping. Placed in 64 days across 136 candidates contacted.
Search Overview
The Challenge
The search opened as a CMO hire. After a talent mapping exercise and structured scope review with the founders, VP Team recalibrated: what the company actually needed was a strong senior individual contributor — the first dedicated marketing hire — who could own the function end-to-end, with a path to lead it as it scales.
Three non-negotiables filtered the entire pool: self-directed writing (LinkedIn, case studies, battle cards — not just briefs), proven hands-on outbound ownership, and HubSpot fluency.
The candidate also needed to sit credibly at the intersection of product and sales: close enough to the product to tell the story accurately, close enough to sales to make it convert.
What VP Team Did
VP Team searched across European B2B SaaS, fintech-adjacent, and invest-tech verticals — prioritising candidates with demonstrable ownership of content, outbound, and sales enablement programs from early stages.
136 candidates were contacted. 12 advanced to HR interview. 3 finalists were presented to the founders. Portfolio review replaced a test task. The funnel reflects deliberate filtering at every stage — not volume for its own sake.
Timeline: 24 Feb — search opened, initial brief: CMO. Early March — talent mapping delivered, scope recalibrated to Senior Marketing Manager. March–April — 136 candidates contacted, 12 HR interviews, 3 finalists presented. 29 April — offer accepted. The process ran clean: HR screen, Product Founder interview, Sales Founder interview, offer.
Result
The placed candidate is a senior B2B SaaS marketer with 5+ years of hands-on experience building marketing from scratch at early-stage and growth-stage companies.
A writer by practice: owned LinkedIn content, case studies, and sales enablement materials directly. Built and executed outbound campaigns without delegation. HubSpot power user with working knowledge of AI marketing tooling.
No direct PE/VC or alternatives fintech background — offset by fast domain learning velocity and the ability to translate complex product positioning into clear market language.
The brief wasn't wrong — it just hadn't been tested against the market yet.
Considering a CMO hire — or unsure if that's what you actually need? VP Team runs talent mapping before sourcing. Let's talk.