CASE STUDIES
As the only challenger search firm in FinTech, we’ve found the right candidates for unicorns, neobanks, incumbent-driven ventures and everything in between.
Vice President of Structuring & Origination
Mana Search was brought on board by a hyper scaling consumer lending platform when their search for a critical hire was hitting roadblocks. Within 3 weeks the position was filled.
Industry Sector: Financial Services – Lending
Number of Employees: 51-100
Valuation: +$1B
Founded: 2014
Key deliverables for this engagement was taking a leading role in developing the capital markets strategy, managing strategic funding projects, originating and executing new transactions. Managing investor relationships as well as running due diligence for new investors, developing funding strategies and taking the lead in strategic initiatives.
A discussion with the client involving extensive evaluation of the details led to a clear picture of the ideal candidate they were looking for. Further research was then conducted into the specific nature of the position to further understand the client’s needs. A dive into the market drew out the individuals with the rare concoction of skill sets and experiences required by the client. A screening of initial candidates led to a shortlist of 10 individuals presented to the client 2 working days later. The client met with multiple candidates and quickly made a connection with a strong candidate.
The client appointed the Vice President of Structuring & Origination 3 weeks after briefing Mana Search.
Chief Technology Officer
Mana Search was retained by an award-winning fintech who was looking to replace an underperforming CTO. The business had some extremely ambitious growth plans into multiple territories, it was vital the hire was made in a timely fashion.
Industry Sector: Financial Services – Business Lending
Number of Employees: 101-250
Last Funding Type: Series C
Total Funding Amount: $111.8M
Key deliverables for this engagement included; Performing an essential role within the executive team: designing and implementing business strategies, plans and procedures and delivering those strategies to the board and advisers; Defining the firm’s development stack, technical roadmap, and architectural framework; Recruiting, managing and mentoring the development team, developing an appropriate plan for staffing the team in a cost-efficient way and setting goals for performance and growth.
From discussing the clients requirement, an agreed profile was defined in conjunction with the CEO & HR Director, a full map of the market was provided with over 30 individuals contacted, from this a suitable shortlist was presented with 3 available CTO’s with a range of expertise ranging between 10 – 15 years and having the expertise and knowledge of building and leading an engineering team both in large corporations across multiple sectors and smaller scale-ups within financial services. Interviews commenced and an offer was accepted to a candidate within 14 days of commencement
The client appointed a CTO within 14 days of briefing Mana Search, the CTO has overseen the growth of the engineering team by over 150% – the desired migration from a 50% outsourced operation to now 100% inhouse. The CTO has also been the driving force behind the growth into multiple territories, becoming one of the key members of the executive team.
Chief Operating Officer
Mana Search was retained by a fast-growing consumer finance provider, who were looking to appoint their first COO. Due to the rate that the business was growing this was a critical and time-sensitive hire – as the operations brief was being stretched between other members of the C-suite.
Industry Sector: Financial Services – Lending
Number of Employees: 51-200
Type: Privately held
Founded: 2014
Key deliverables for this engagement included; Defining the strategic operating model for the business, both people & systems; Day-to-day management of internal and external operations, including call center, fraud & underwriting, customer service, collections and recoveries, complaints management; Sourcing of vendors and suppliers of professional services, systems and tools; Leading complex change, including integration of technical systems.
From discussing the clients requirement, an agreed profile was defined in conjunction with the CEO, a full map of the market was provided with over 50 individuals contacted, from this a suitable shortlist was presented with 3 available COO’s with a range of expertise ranging between 10 – 15 years having the expertise and knowledge of building an operations brief within a growing consumer financial services provider. The 3 shortlisted COOs had a strong background of both financial services operations within similar-sized organisations and having scaled at a similar rate and technical expertise either from an Analytics or a Data background. They were presented to our client within 10 days of commencing.
The client appointed a COO within 21 days of briefing Mana Search, the COO has quickly added significant value to the organisation – taking the lead in all operations and working closely with the Risk and Engineering functions in integrating the technical systems into the operations. The customer service operation has grown by 200% which has been driven by the COO.
Head of Decision Science
Mana Search was retained on a 3-month subscription by a young but rapidly growing distressed asset investment group, who were looking to build out their data & analytics team to support a significant period of growth. They required 3 senior analysts and most crucially a Head of Decision Science to head up the team.
Industry Sector: Industry Sector: Financial Services – Distressed Asset Investment
Number of Employees: 3000
Acquired from: Blenheim Chalcot Venture Capital & Private Equity
Key deliverables for the Head of Decision Science included; Own the decision science strategy and roadmap, building the capability to make a difference across the business; Monitor scorecard performance, making recommendations on scorecard refresh and redevelopment programs; Work closely with the Risk Team across a variety of activities – from setting strategy to building and optimising models.
From the initial meeting discussing the clients requirements, an agreed timescale was defined in conjunction with the CEO, a Head of Decision Science would be hired as a priority with a full map of the market provided with over 25 individuals contacted, from this a suitable shortlist was presented with 3 available candidates with a range of expertise ranging between 7-12 years having the expertise and knowledge of building and leading a Decision Science function within financial services. In conjunction with this – the other 3 analyst roles were also worked across our Financial Services team – a shortlist of 5 candidates for each role was presented – a quantitative analyst/data scientist proficient in R, a senior strategic risk analyst to step into a managerial role within 18 months, and a Senior Credit Risk modeller in SAS/Python.
The client appointed all 4 positions within 12 weeks of briefing Mana Search, the Head of Decision Science immediately led the onboarding of the other hires – with the strategic analyst now a leading manager in the business. The client continued to grow significantly and led to them being acquired by the industry leader in 2019.