Technology (Marketing)

Providing Strong Leadership for a Strategic Product Launch
Global Vice President, Solution Marketing for the Worldwide Leader in Networking for the Internet

The Client Need
An established global technology leader was about to make its first move into a new market: the highly competitive datacenter space. The industry would be watching carefully, and our client had only one chance to get it right, so they asked SEBA to find the best possible product marketing manager to lead the launch.

The SEBA Solution
The client had a specific idea of the right type of person for the job: a veteran in datacenter-related product marketing. We identified several executives who fit the bill and presented four of them for consideration. But given the specifics of the role-leading the company's first foray into a hotly contested market-we knew that leadership and entrepreneurial acumen would be even more important than traditional product marketing expertise. Following our instincts, we went beyond our client's instructions and presented two additional candidates: rather than classic product marketers, they were datacenter gurus with proven leadership skills and strategic insight.

The Result
The non-traditional candidates we presented immediately stood out from the others. Although neither fit the letter of the assignment, no one on the client's interview team questioned whether they had the right background. In fact, compared with the more slow-and-steady approach typical of enterprise product marketers, they clearly had the entrepreneurial drive, out-of-the-box instincts, and datacenter market knowledge needed to drive the launch to success. The only remaining challenge for our client was which of the two to hire.