The Challenge

Europe's leading automotive distribution software company had the product, the market position, and the PE backing to scale. What it didn't have was the commercial leadership to make it happen.

The Private Equity investors needed to act on two fronts:

• Install commercial leadership: bring in a CSO capable of owning the full revenue architecture across 11 European markets simultaneously.
• Accelerate growth: translate a dominant market position into a scalable, repeatable, and internationally consistent sales engine.

They turned to The Big Search to find that leader.

Overview Of The Executive Search

October 2024 → January 2025 | PE Value Creation: Revenue Architecture Phase

The client is a French automotive software group, founded in 2000, and Europe's leading provider of automotive distribution technology. The company sells SaaS solutions across the full automotive retail process: vehicle inventory management, DMS, after-sales, accounting, invoicing, CRM, and OEM digital platforms.

Backed by a global private equity firm and operating across 11 countries with 700+ employees and 10,000+ customers, the business had crossed the €100M revenue threshold in 2022 through a focused M&A strategy and an expanding product ecosystem. By late 2024, the SaaS company was entering a new chapter: consolidating its market leadership and building the commercial organisation required to defend and grow it.

The brief was to find a CSO with proven B2B SaaS sales leadership, a track record of scaling multi-country revenue organisations, and the maturity to work as a genuine partner to the CEO and Board in a PE-backed environment. Multi-lingual fluency and cross-cultural leadership credentials were non-negotiable.

Executive Search Across European B2B SaaS, Automotive Tech & Multi-Market Sales Leadership

The hunting strategy targeted CSO, CRO, CCO, and VP Sales-level profiles from European B2B SaaS and vertical software businesses, specifically those with:

• Full sales cycle ownership across multiple countries in European markets
• Track record of scaling recurring revenue in complex, multi-product SaaS environments
• Experience in building and restructuring commercial organisations at the PE growth stage
• Vertical software or industry-specific SaaS DNA (automotive, healthtech, fintech, logistics, or similar)
• Strong cross-cultural leadership credentials and multi-lingual capability for a pan-European remit

Target company archetypes included vertical SaaS platforms, European software scale-ups, PE-backed B2B technology businesses, and multi-market digital solution providers across France, DACH, Nordics, Southern Europe, and CEE.

We undertook an exhaustive mapping exercise across DACH, the Nordics, Southern Europe, and CEE, identifying 181 candidates.

Days to first shortlist delivery: 50 days from kick-off

⏱ Days to shortlist: 50 days

90 days for a pan-European SaaS CSO search, from scoping a new commercial leadership role to a signed offer. The hiring manager pointed to “quick reaction, open conversations that helped to scope the search, availability, a good pool of candidates, and a very exhaustive and relevant candidate brief".

The shortlist of 7 gave the client a genuine range across the market. They decided within a single interview round.

At close, the hiring manager's view was straightforward: "I'm glad we made it, and it will be a pleasure to work with you again."

The Placed Candidate: A Commercial Leader With Proven Experience Building the Revenue Engine 

The future CSO is an entrepreneurial commercial leader with a 20+ year career at the intersection of SaaS growth, multi-market expansion, and revenue architecture. From co-founding and exiting a pan-CEE e-commerce business to leading the global sales function at one of Europe's most recognised healthtech SaaS businesses, they bring founder instinct and enterprise execution to the same brief.

Why they fit:

💰 SaaS revenue at scale: Most recently, Global Chief Sales Officer at a leading European and Latin American healthtech SaaS company (~€150M revenue, 13 countries, 2,600 employees), owning the full commercial architecture across enterprise and SMB segments simultaneously.

🌍 Pan-European credibility: Career spanning Turkey, CEE, Southern Europe, DACH, and Latin America, with five languages and the cultural fluency to lead commercial teams across 11 markets without friction.

🚀 Founder-grade commercial instinct: Co-founded and scaled a pan-CEE fashion e-commerce business to 1,000 employees across 14 countries before exiting. The builder's mindset runs through every stage of their career.

📈 GTM architecture expertise: Designed and executed full GTM transformations as VP Revenue and GTM Strategy before stepping into the CSO seat, bringing both strategic design and operational execution to the same role.

🎓 Elite academic foundation: DBA from SDA Bocconi and MBA from Vlerick Business School, combining world-class management education with 20+ years of commercial practice.

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Most PE-backed software companies reach a point where the product has outgrown the commercial infrastructure. The platform works. The market is there. The customer base is loyal. But the sales organisation can't scale it yet.

Closing that gap tends to require someone who has architected revenue at scale, built teams across markets, and operated at the pace that Private Equity demands. Finding that person in 90 days is not routine. In our experience, it takes a clear brief, a focused search, and a willingness to go past the obvious candidates.

If your portfolio company is at that inflexion point, let's talk.

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