Business case
Chief Commercial Officer
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS
SCENARIO
Our Client was a private industrial Group backed by a leading international PE firm and an industrial holding company.
It operates in the agro-industrial business, specializing in bio-stimulants for agriculture through a B2B model that serves major global players in both agrochemical and industrial sectors across more than 90 countries.
The company enjoyed a strong competitive position built on distinctive proprietary products, unique production processes, and best-in-class R&D capabilities. Their top line was growing consistently with expectations for continued double-digit expansion.
The company was at the beginning of a new life cycle, designed around a progression of international growth steps involving new product solutions and new market-client combinations.
This strategic evolution, combined with newly shaped ambitions, has created the need for a Chief Commercial Officer role, to orchestrate and accelerate the growth plans consistently.
CHALLENGE
The new CCO was to be a corporate executive and strategic partner to both the Group CEO and stakeholders, tasked with managing ambitious growth targets, while elevating sales capabilities and boosting revenue generation at a global level.
The role presented 3 interconnected challenges:
- Had to support the Group CEO and management team in developing go-to-market strategies across markets and new product solutions, executing strategic business development rooted in market analysis, potential assessment, new needs identification, market penetration opportunities, and risk evaluation.
- Had to take leadership of the commercial and logistics organization, elevating their capabilities to become proactive, sophisticated, and strategic in their approach to B2B client relationships. This transformation required developing people, processes, and systems that operate at the highest level of professional excellence.
- Had to drive revenue growth through a dual strategy that leveraged the company’s established credibility, product quality, and reputation. This involved accelerating growth in current business areas where the group held leadership positions while simultaneously expanding into new product categories where markets are more competitive but potentially more attractive. Success required maximizing existing client relationships while building new capabilities to compete effectively in unfamiliar territories across diverse global markets.
STRATEGY
Our Client presented unique organizational complexities, which made our project definitely tough.
The company’s key Commercial Executive (Biostimulants BU Director and first report to the CEO) represented decades of institutional memory and had built deep relationships with major clients over many years: an essential asset whose knowledge and client connections needed to be preserved.
After extensive market mapping and analysis of commercial structures across the target market, we developed – in close cohesion and agreement with the PE Fund Partners – a strategic solution that balanced respect for existing relationships with the need for enhanced commercial capabilities.
Rather than proceeding with the onboarding of the CCO as a CEO-1 role, and supported by thorough market evidence, we recommended creating new complementary roles directly reporting to the Director of Business Unit Biostimulants. This approach allowed us to introduce fresh commercial expertise, while preserving invaluable client relationships and institutional knowledge.
Our search focused on identifying professionals who could integrate seamlessly into this collaborative structure, bringing complementary skills to elevate the entire commercial function while respecting the established culture and relationships that had made the company successful.
RESULTS
The search concluded successfully with the recruitment of two new Executives: the Co-Head – Biostimulants and the Deputy Head Biostimulants.
Both appointments integrated well into the existing organisation, collaborating effectively with the team while bringing leadership, fresh commercial expertise and modern market development capabilities to support the company’s growth and transformation process.
The strategic success of this project extended beyond the immediate placements. The client’s satisfaction with our nuanced approach to organizational dynamics led to additional executive search mandates across different leadership functions and business perspectives.
