Silverfin
Background on the Client
Founded in 2013 and HQ’d in Belgium, Silverfin are a dynamic and disruptive FinTech. Quoted in the industry press as being “The Salesforce for Financial Data”, Silverfin have developed a next-gen, automated financial processing software solution, used to standardise and streamline thousands of financial processes. Having experienced a great deal of early success, Silverfin had firmly established themselves among the Audit, Accounting and CFO community of the Benelux region, with 80% of the top Accounting firms using their solution. Silverfin were now looking to replicate the success that they had experienced so far outside of the Benelux region and to establish the UK as the commercial hub for the global entity. Although cash rich and profitable, to fund global expansion, Silverfin attracted $4.5Mn in series A funding from Index Ventures, one of the world’s leading VC’s.
THE CHALLENGE
Silverfin wanted to establish themselves in the UK Market, a far more saturated, aggressive and difficult market to navigate than the Benelux region, where up to now had been their sole focus. To do this Silverfin needed to build a field sales capability from top to bottom. The initially built a SDR function who immediately started to generate qualified opportunities. Silverfin now needed a field sales team and they needed one quickly to capitalise on the SDR teams work.
The reality was that we needed to attract top sales professionals in a market where Silverfin had no brand, no track record and no local case studies. Added to this, the leadership of the business were/are extremely high quality individuals with similarly high expectations of potential hires – excellent sales performance, right career profile and right cultural fit were not enough. The candidates had to be top graduates from top universities, if not MBA’s. They had to have everything and more. This type of profile sits in top companies, blue-chips with limitless resource at their disposal and a full pipeline of business that would ensure they smashed targets. We had to have an offering strong enough to motivate these candidates to leave this enviable and extremely comfortable position, that they had worked hard for a number of years to attain, in order to take a chance on an unknown start up………In Belgium, they could have the pick of the talent, in London it was going to be a different story.
THE SOLUTION
A true partnership, a fully retained executive search project, allowing Engage to dedicate the resource and time to fully map the competitor landscape and take the right message to market.
With the VP Sales responsible for building and leading the sales team, we agreed a candidate profile for Sales Exec, Sales Manager and Sales Director and we agreed a list of target organisations, where the right candidates would be found. The outlined project timelines.
Engage produced the marketing collateral and had that signed off by Silverfin.
The research team were briefed and started out mapping the sales teams top to bottom, of those organisations to produce a long-list of relevant candidates.
Candidate approaches were made and presented with exclusive message around both the business and opportunity.
The process was then managed from interviews / presentations, offer negotiation and acceptance, resignation, on-boarding and beyond.
The Outcome
Multiple sales professionals placed in mid, senior and management positions. Silverfin now have a high performing UK based field sales team. This has encouraged the Silverfin leadership to continue to reach out to Engage PSG to supply sales professionals in partnership with their own internal recruitment function, as they continue to grow.
Engage PSG have also been asked to offer guidance and advice on recruiting in the UK market, to Silverfin’s internal recruitment function.
London – UK Headquarters
91 Wimpole Street,
Marylebone,
W1G 0EF
Los Angeles – USA
7th Floor,
Pacific Design Center – Red Building
750 N San Vicente Blvd,
Ste 800 West Los Angeles
CA 90069
Sydney – Asia Pacific
Level 2,
333 George Street,
Sydney,
NSW 2000
