The Brief

A Hong Kong-based startup that received over (HKD) $500m in funding from a major global banking organisation needed a new Global Chief Technology Officer to set a new strategy post-funding. Along with setting the technology strategy, the CTO would be responsible for building the team from scratch, defining the tech-driven culture of the company, and continuing to maintain and deliver a state-of-the-art platform for the global trade industry. Driving and managing the partnership with the startup’s cloud partner was a crucial part of the role and so, this new CTO had to have a background in big tech, and ideally, in Silicon Valley.

The Approach

Knowing the focus was on candidates from US tech companies, Marlin Hawk focused primarily on candidates from West Coast companies in the US, honing in on executives with the right technical background and mix of commerciality. Our global research team on this search took a three-pronged strategy to mapping talent across: Major technology organisations, identifying executives across significant business lines. Startups, specifically seeking candidates that had previous experience of leading core cloud functions within the big tech industry. Industries such as retail and gaming, focusing on organisations that had set the standard of cloud technology and engineering within their industries.

The Result

The chosen candidate was a West Coast technologist who was selected by our client not just for their expertise, but also as a culture builder to take this well-funded start-up to its next growth phase. Prior to taking on the CTO role with our client, they had held executive leadership roles in Engineering, Software Development, Technology Strategy, Technical Product Strategy and Operations. They bring strong technology leadership and in-depth technical knowledge in delivering IaaS, PaaS and SaaS services for Cloud based solutions.

The Impact

Despite a plethora of external economic and socio-political challenges in the region, the candidate has been excelling in the role. Since joining, they have built the tech stack from zero to launch in eight months and continue to iterate as strategy and focus shift. The CTO has also built a scalable and experienced regional team and has been instrumental in building a tech-first culture within the organisation.