Executive Hiring and People Strategy for FinTech start up
Starting to scale a new business is super exciting and at the same time, excruciatingly hard work and darn stressful. It’s pretty much that “pleasure pain” my mid-wife described when discussing labour. And how apt that I now use that analogy when I describe labour pains in the context of workforce growth. Over the last 20 years HillierRose have worked with lots of start and scale ups that have amazing products and services, the initial core team are energised, and everyone is on the same mission. The business then realises it needs to embed structure and the processes and policies that will allow for stabilised growth, it is at this point when the call comes in from a Founder who is very busy but understands that to capture this energy and drive – a great people strategy is needed sooner rather than later. In steps HillierRose.
The solution is always bring in an expert that can work with a CEOs idiosyncrasies’. Its half the battle won in building the right foundations that meet the vision and objectives of a new business. Its also a great case study to reference when HillierRose talk about aligning executive hiring alongside people strategies.
Understanding the strengths and priorities of CEO’s, takes experience. For over a decade we have worked with highly ambitious and driven CEO’s of start-ups. They are 99% always really busy and focussed on building products, nailing investment opportunities, winning new business etc. and the list of big jobs goes on! Literally every CEO we work with knows that people will be the single most essential function to a winning formula, but rarely are any entrepreneurial founders from a workforce or HR background so they don’t have the right experience or leadership traits to build people functions and processes . The “people piece” is time consuming, emotional, admin heavy, fickle, costs money etc …………. and the list of big restraints builds.
Case Study: Building people foundations ready for scale.
A recent project HillierRose worked on was with a global, FinTech start up. The CEO was referred to us as he had hit a critical point with a team of 15 across 4 countries, from which he wanted to scale and also align a global culture supported with processes and policies. He won’t mind me saying that he is hugely charismatic and phenomenal at building digital products and influencing stakeholders but lacked the time and patience for hiring and people processes. He was also super conscious of wasting money and disrupting the current flow of the team.
This is great case study to reference, as HillierRose always talks about aligning executive hiring alongside people strategies and this really demonstrates how they can work hand in hand.
Together we decided on the following objectives from the conversations and data we obtained via coaching, 1-2-1s, talent surveys and assessments.
Phase 1: Organisational structure: Review the current flat structure and see how we could build leadership and progression into the structure without too much hierarchy or losing the autonomy of the teams. Align people skills to client requirements and costings. Build centralised, support efficiencies to support the global teams.
Phase 2: Leadership Hiring: Identify leadership potential and desire. Recognise leadership strengths and areas for development aligned to corporate vision and targets. Build leadership roles to meet capability and capacity requirements. Future leaders programme. Consider leadership capability and structure to support growth. Recruit to posts.
Phase 2: Policies and process: Review all people policies and processes. Implement People and HR systems to support communication, compliance, recruitment, onboarding, performance and peer leaning. Write scalable policies that align to vision, culture, employee wellbeing, best practice and regional law. Build new job descriptions and career pathway contents with performance analysis for each employee.
Phase 3: Progression pathways to scale: Identify key areas for scaling such as early career pathways. Recruit to posts. Coach managers to identify, engage and onboard junior team members.
HillierRose within 9 months from initial conversation, successfully delivered against all objectives. The business now has the foundations to scale and the tools in place to support the careers and wellbeing of employees. HillierRose remains in regular contact with the CEO and Senior Leadership to measure impact and support with ad-hoc people requirements. We have loved being an instrumental part in this amazing young company’s’ start up journey.
It’s always huge privilege to be able to work alongside some of the best entrepreneurs and ingenious brains in today’s hiring marketplaces and play an instrumental part in finding them key leaders or developing the core teams into leaders that install the importance of a positive workplace culture and work force planning from the get-go.
To discover how HillierRose can find you exceptional leaders or support your scaling people function please contact….
Written by Emma McNamara, June 2023