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Each round changes who the business needs at the top, and most founders make each senior hire for the first time. HMN Capital runs executive search for venture-backed businesses across the UK and Europe, and advises on which hire comes next, how to brief it and what to offer.
Recent venture mandates include the CFO, CRO, CPO and COO for one VC-backed business
No two businesses follow the same order, and the brief is set by the business rather than the round. These are the patterns we see most often.
Series A
The first leaders beyond the founding team. On the commercial side this is often a VP Revenue who can build the sales motion, rather than a CRO to run one. A first senior finance lead often arrives here too, ahead of the reporting a Series B investor will expect.
Series B
Often around the $5m ARR mark. The revenue seat tends to step up to a CRO, and two or three further senior hires usually follow: commonly a CFO, a COO or a product leader. A team hired for speed starts having to run for scale.
Growth and Series C
The leadership team beneath the C-suite, a first Chief People Officer, and board members who have been through the next stage. Founder roles are often reshaped here, with a COO or a co-CEO alongside.
Pre-exit and IPO
A CFO with transaction or listed-company experience, governance a buyer or the market will scrutinise, and non-executive directors to match.
First institutional CFO
Arrives to a finance function that does not exist yet: board packs, investor reporting, the data room for the next raise. The usual miss is hiring for the exit before the business needs it. CFO search
VP Revenue, then CRO
A builder at Series A, an operator at Series B. Hiring the operator when the business still needs the builder is a mistake we see often, and it costs a year. CRO and VP Revenue search
CTO and CPO
Taking the platform past what the founding team built, often with AI and data depth the domestic market is short of. Two of our recent venture product and technology searches ran cross-border for that reason. CTO and CPO search
First COO
Gives a technical or product-led founder an operating partner, so the founder can stay close to product and customers. COO search
Founder-CEO transitions
When a founder moves seat, or the board adds an operator alongside them. These searches run confidentially, with the founder inside the process. CEO search
Chief AI Officer
The first senior owner of AI across the product and the operation, usually hired once the board wants AI on the plan rather than in a pilot. Chief AI Officer search
Chair and non-executive directors
Board experience added ahead of a later round, an acquisition or an exit.
The leadership team beneath the C-suite
Finance Directors, Financial Controllers, Heads of AI and first commercial hires, run as part of the same relationship. Roles we place
Guidance before the search
Before a search starts we help settle which hire comes next and what the role has to own in its first year. Sometimes the answer is a different hire, or not yet.
Packages and equity
We benchmark salary, bonus and equity for the seat against live market data, so the offer reflects what the seat pays in the market today.
One relationship across the portfolio
For funds, we work across the portfolio rather than one search at a time, alongside the talent or platform team where there is one, so each company benefits from what the last search learned.
A first candidate inside two weeks
We put the first credible candidate in front of you inside two weeks of the brief being settled, and present the shortlist in two to four weeks. The clock starts when the brief is settled, and how quickly you come back to us moves it.
Interim alongside permanent
When a seat empties before the permanent search can finish, we can place an experienced interim to hold it while the search runs in parallel.
Headline mandate
CFO, CRO, CPO and COO for one VC-backed business
Four C-suite appointments for the same venture-backed company as it scaled, plus the people and commercial hires beneath them.
Chief Financial Officer
VC-backed enterprise software. First dedicated senior finance appointment in a founder-led business after two acquisitions: group consolidation across three jurisdictions and board-ready packs for a US VC investor.
65 days, brief to offer
Chief Product Officer
VC-backed AI and data products. A first CPO with genuine AI and machine-learning depth. When the domestic market came up short, the search widened to the United States.
Hired from the US
Chief Technology Officer
VC-backed fintech infrastructure, Benelux. A CTO to re-architect a platform under volume and stand up the engineering governance an incoming Series B investor would expect.
Sourced across the UK and Benelux
Chief Operating Officer
Growth-equity-backed healthtech, Nordics. A first COO to industrialise delivery and give the board an operating partner alongside a technical founder-CEO.
Founder freed to focus on product
Chief Revenue Officer
Growth-equity-backed B2B SaaS. Turning strong product-market fit into a predictable revenue engine across a multi-channel enterprise sales model.
150% year-on-year growth after the hire
Chief Marketing Officer
Growth-equity-backed consumer subscription. Building brand and retention without breaking the cost-per-acquisition model ahead of a planned exit.
70 days, brief to accepted offer
“We’d raised our Series B and the plan assumed leaders we didn’t yet have. HMN took the time to understand what the next eighteen months would actually demand of the role, not just the job description, and brought us a shortlist of people who had built at exactly our stage. We hired from it inside two months, and our investors noticed the difference by the next board meeting.”
Founder & CEO, venture-backed B2B software company
Further reading: The first institutional CFO · Two names on the door: the co-CEO structure · The Chief AI Officer gap
Should a Series A business hire a CRO or a VP Revenue?
Usually a VP Revenue: someone who builds the sales motion alongside the founder. The CRO seat tends to make sense once there is a repeatable motion to run and a team to lead, which for many businesses is around Series B. The business decides it, not the round.
When should we hire our first CFO?
Usually once investor reporting and the next raise need more than a finance manager and an external accountant can give. Many businesses make the hire between Series A and Series B.
Do you advise on packages and equity?
Yes. We benchmark salary, bonus and equity for the seat against live market data and help shape an offer the candidate and the board can both accept.
Do you only work with private equity-backed businesses?
No. We work with venture, growth and PE-backed businesses across the UK and Europe. The search process is the same; the brief is different, because a Series B company and a mid-hold buyout need different people.
Can you run a search for a seat that is still occupied?
Yes. Discretion is part of every search we run, and confidential searches are routine.
