Roles

CRO recruitment and Chief Revenue Officer search

Search for the person who will own the number. Chief Revenue Officer appointments for venture-backed SaaS and AI companies in the US and EMEA.

300+

GTM placements over five years

40 / 60

Split of placements across the US and EMEA

25%

Of placements at executive-search level

10 days

Average to identify the ideal candidate after intake

The CRO appointment is the one hire a founder cannot delegate and rarely gets a second attempt at within the same funding cycle.

Tipped runs Chief Revenue Officer search for companies between Seed and Series C, usually at the point where founder-led sales has reached its ceiling.

What the intake establishes

Scope
Sales only, or sales plus success, marketing and revenue operations.
Stage fit
Whether the role is builder, scaler or fixer — they are different people.
Hands-on expectation
Whether the CRO personally carries deals in year one.
Package
Base, variable and equity benchmarked against the actual market, not a template.

Builder, scaler or fixer

A builder appoints the first repeatable motion where none exists. A scaler takes a working motion from $5m to $30m by adding process and people. A fixer inherits an underperforming organisation and rebuilds it. Candidates are rarely strong at more than two, and the CV alone will not tell you which one you are reading.

The shortlist states explicitly which category each candidate falls into and the evidence behind that judgement.

Confidential and retained

CRO searches are commonly confidential, particularly where an incumbent is in post. These run retained, with exclusivity and a mapped market rather than an inbound flow.

Proof

Unitary AI

Five placements in five months for Unitary AI while functions were being established following its VC funding and commitment to agentic AI.

Read the case study
5
Placements
5 months
Elapsed across the programme

Selected clients

  • Cursor
  • Planhat
  • Branch
  • Unitary AI
  • Sweep
  • Anima Health
  • FullStory
  • Acoustic
  • Optimizely
  • VertoFX

Common questions

When should a company hire a CRO rather than a VP Sales?
A CRO makes sense when responsibility spans more than the selling team — typically sales alongside customer success, and often marketing and revenue operations. Where the requirement is to build and lead the selling organisation alone, a VP Sales is usually the correct appointment.
Do you run CRO searches confidentially?
Yes. Confidential and retained searches are standard at this level, particularly where an incumbent is still in post.

Ready to talk about the hire?

Tell us the roles, the markets and the stage. You will get a straight answer on whether we are the right partner, and a market view either way.