Two Leadership Gaps, One Record Year: Building Product and Cross-Border Logistics Leadership for a European Curated Auction Marketplace

The Challenge

Our client runs a curated online marketplace built around weekly auctions for rare and collectible objects: art, watches, classic cars, jewelry, and antiques, each authenticated by an in-house team of specialist experts before going live to bidders across dozens of countries. The company had just closed a record year, with revenue past €100 million and its highest profitability to date, momentum driven partly by a new live-auction format it had recently launched.

Two distinct leadership gaps surfaced at the same time:

• On the product side, sustaining that growth meant finding a Chief Product Officer who could own the next phase of platform development, building on strength rather than fixing a weakness
• As a platform moving rare, often high-value physical objects across more than 60 countries, the company needed a VP of Shipping who could bring real cross-border logistics and last-mile delivery expertise to a business where shipping was becoming core to the buyer and seller experience, not a back-office function

They turned to The Big Search.

Overview of the two executive searches

• European curated online auction platform, art and luxury collectibles
• Two executive hires
• February 2026 → June 2026
• Growth & Category Expansion Phase

Between late February 2026 and June 2026, The Big Search partnered with the client to fill two leadership mandates: a Chief Product Officer to own the next phase of platform development, and a VP of Shipping to build out cross-border logistics capability. The two searches ran in parallel, opening within a day of each other, reflecting how urgent both gaps had become at the same growth inflection point. We closed both.

Phase 1 - Scaling Product Leadership Through a Record-Growth Year: Chief Product Officer

• February 2026 → June 2026
• Growth & Category Expansion Phase

That kind of momentum changes what product leadership needs to look like. The company needed a Chief Product Officer who could build on an already-strong base, with genuine experience scaling consumer technology products in retail, e-commerce, or marketplace businesses, not someone learning the category on the job.

Executive Search Across European Consumer Marketplace Product Leadership

The hunting strategy targeted product leaders with a demonstrated track record scaling consumer technology across retail, e-commerce, or marketplace businesses, with a preference for candidates who had operated in fast-moving, operationally complex categories.

Profile criteria:

• A demonstrated track record scaling consumer technology products in retail, e-commerce, or marketplace businesses
• Executive Committee-level operating experience, not just a functional product leadership role
• Exposure to fast-moving, operationally complex consumer categories
• Comfort building on an already-successful product base rather than turning around a struggling one

We mapped 257 candidates across Europe.

First shortlist

21 days from kick-off

Of the 257 mapped, 154 were contacted directly. 91 responded and 47 expressed genuine interest, a 59% response rate and a 31% interest rate, and all 47 went through a consultant interview. Twenty made the shortlist, and 11 met the client directly before an offer was made and accepted. The gap between candidates contacted and candidates who converted to real interest reflects how many product leaders will take an initial call for a marketplace of this profile, but far fewer had the specific Executive Committee-level, marketplace-scale experience the brief called for.

The Placed Candidate: A Product Leader Who Has Sat on the Executive Committee Twice

They came into the process with a documented track record in consumer product leadership from 2017 to 2025, most recently holding an Executive Committee-level Chief Product Officer role. Before that, they held an Executive Committee-level VP role overseeing product for a quick-commerce business. Earlier in their career, they moved up through senior product management and supply chain product management and analytics roles.

• Executive Committee experience twice over — held Executive Committee-level roles in both of their two most recent positions, proof they can operate at a company's top table, not just run a product organisation from below it.
• Quick-commerce depth — direct experience owning product for a quick-commerce business, one of the more operationally demanding categories in consumer tech, relevant to a marketplace scaling transaction volume fast.
• Supply chain and analytics grounding — earlier career roles in supply chain product management and analytics gave them an operational lens that pure consumer-app product leaders often lack.

Phase 2 - Building Cross-Border Shipping Capability Ahead of a Live-Format Expansion: VP Shipping

• February 2026 → May 2026
• Operational Scaling Phase

Running in parallel with the CPO search, the company needed to strengthen its shipping and logistics leadership. Shipping isn't peripheral to this business, it shapes the buyer and seller experience directly. The mandate called for a VP of Shipping with real cross-border logistics and last-mile delivery expertise, not a generalist operations hire.

Executive Search Across European Cross-Border Logistics and Last-Mile Leadership

The hunting strategy targeted logistics operators with direct experience in cross-border transportation procurement, last-mile delivery networks, and large-scale e-commerce fulfillment operations.

Profile criteria:

• Direct experience in cross-border transportation procurement across multiple European markets
• Last-mile delivery network management, including delivery service provider relationships
• Large-scale e-commerce fulfillment operations experience
• Comfort operating in a high-value, physical-goods logistics environment rather than standard parcel delivery

We mapped 112 candidates across Europe.

First shortlist

15 days from kick-off

Of the 112 mapped, 59 were contacted directly. 53 responded and 26 expressed genuine interest, a 90% response rate and a 44% interest rate, unusually strong figures that reflect how tightly targeted the search was, and all 26 went through a consultant interview. Six made the shortlist, and all 6 met the client directly before an offer was made and accepted. Converting the very first shortlist into a hire, on a search this narrowly defined, points to a brief that matched the market precisely rather than one requiring several rounds to calibrate.

The Placed Candidate: A Cross-Border Logistics Operator With Fulfillment Experience at Global Scale

They came into the process with a career built almost entirely inside cross-border logistics and last-mile delivery operations. Most recently, they led EU transportation procurement and operations. Before that, they managed last-mile delivery service provider relationships across Spain, and led fulfillment operations for a major global e-commerce retailer's regional fulfillment network. Earlier in their career, they held senior product management and large-scale transformation program roles.

• Direct last-mile expertise — managed last-mile delivery partner networks and led regional fulfillment operations for one of the world's largest e-commerce operators, a close match for a marketplace shipping high-value goods across borders.
• Cross-border procurement — most recent role was specifically EU-wide transportation procurement, directly relevant to a platform operating across 60+ countries.
• Operational transformation background — years spent leading large-scale transformation programs earlier in their career, useful for a logistics function scaling alongside rapid transaction growth.

A marketplace moving rare, high-value goods across borders doesn't have one leadership gap when it hits a growth inflection point, it has several, surfacing on different functions at the same time. This client's two problems, product development and cross-border shipping, looked unrelated on paper, but both required leaders who had already built at the specific scale and complexity the business was moving into, not generalists who would need time to learn it.

The Big Search closed both mandates between February 2026 and June 2026, mapping 369 candidates across the two searches and converting each into a hire whose prior experience matched the client's operational reality closely.

If your growth is creating more than one leadership gap at once, treating each as its own search, with its own hunting thesis, is what separates a good fit from the right one.

If that's where you are, let's talk.