Artico Search Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for CharterUP
June 12, 2023 – Top-drawer chief revenue officers are commonly found at start-ups and smaller businesses and tend to the bottom line while the rest of the C-level team expands key partnerships, seeks growth opportunities, or sources funding. That is changing. Larger businesses now view the CRO post as an essential, long-term role. Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor of Artico Search recently assisted in the recruitment of start-up-scaling veteran Tyler Baldwin as the new chief revenue officer of CharterUP. “His proficiency in leadership, strategic planning and business optimization makes him an ideal candidate to join our team at CharterUP,” said Armir Harris, founder and CEO. “As chief revenue officer, Tyler will play an instrumental role in propelling CharterUP’s overall growth strategy as we continue to expand our presence nationwide.”
Mr. Baldwin brings a track record in sales, strategy, and operations, making him well-suited to drive CharterUP’s continued growth in the group transportation industry. His experience includes holding several C-level positions, such as CRO and CEO, at Reali, as well as key influential roles at prestigious organizations like LinkedIn, McKinsey & Company. and Pinterest. At Reali, a real estate fintech platform, Mr. Baldwin played a pivotal role in scaling the company from $1 million to $250 million in revenue while also growing the team from 50 to 500 staff members. His expertise in scaling start-up platforms will help CharterUP, which is currently experiencing its own hypergrowth with a boost from a recent $60 million Series A round led by Tritium Partners. During his tenure at LinkedIn, Mr. Baldwin helped launch LinkedIn Sales Navigator, served as the head of sales for the mid-market and enterprise team for LinkedIn Elevate, and designed and implemented the connected enterprise group, a new GTM structure for LinkedIn’s largest strategic accounts.
In his new role with CharterUP, Mr. Baldwin will be responsible for supervising and enhancing CharterUP’s revenue-generating endeavors, fostering strong client partnerships and propelling the company’s overarching growth strategy. “His strategic mindset and emphasis on operational excellence will significantly contribute to CharterUP’s objective of delivering outstanding value and unparalleled customer experiences,” the company said.
“CharterUP has quickly solidified itself as the leading platform for charter services across the U.S.,” Mr. Baldwin said. “I am thrilled to be joining the company at such an exciting time and look forward to leveraging my expertise in driving revenue and global expansion to elevate the organization to new heights. With the incredible CharterUP team, I eagerly anticipate delivering exceptional transportation solutions and creating lasting, positive experiences for our customers.”
Based in Atlanta, CharterUP is a marketplace for charter bus reservations. The company says CharterUP was founded with a single idea in mind: create a model for accountability and transparency that has never existed in the charter bus industry. The company offers a suite of capabilities, such as real-time availability and tracking, pricing, and instant booking, allowing customers to charter a bus in 60 seconds.
Proven Search Consultants
With offices in San Francisco, New York, and Austin, TX, Artico is off to one of the fastest starts among boutique search firms in recent memory. Ms. Chatfield-Taylor co-founded Artico with Matt Comyns, a cybersecurity leadership expert, to lead the firm’s rapidly expanding growth executive search team. Given the billions of dollars flowing into venture capital and private equity investments these days, as well as the ever-present threat of cybersecurity breaches, the founders expect big growth acceleration ahead. Ms. Chatfield-Taylor has completed over 75 CEO searches as well as partner, principal, and other CXO level assignments.
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Ms. Chatfield-Taylor’s team focuses on executive-level search for scale-up venture capital and private equity-backed technology companies. The team has deep expertise in global enterprise software, data and consumer internet businesses. Ms. Chatfield-Taylor is deeply passionate about the importance of diversifying the industry, with a full 53 percent of her placements tracked since 2019 being underrepresented executives.
Evolving Role
The chief revenue officer essentially owns everything that goes to market – sales, account management, customer success, and sometimes marketing as well, according to a recent report from ON Partners. Ten years ago, there was no such position as the CRO. The role was known as head of global sales or VP of sales, depending on how companies defined the role. But as executives in that position continued to see other key functional experts reporting directly to the CEO, they wanted a seat at the executive table as well.
Artico Search Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for Showpad
Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, co-founder of Artico Search, recruited Doug Grigg as the new chief revenue officer of Showpad. Mr. Grigg is an accomplished and results-driven executive leader with 20-plus years of proven performance in customer facing roles. He is skilled and experienced at delivering aggressive growth targets, leading and building teams, driving organizational transformation, developing sales organizations, entering new markets, creating high performance cultures, establishing operational systems, processes and rigor to deliver business value, merger and acquisition integration.
According to ON Partners, the CRO role demands different skill-sets depending on the client. “For a smaller growth company, someone who thrives in an early-stage environment and enjoys building things from scratch – hiring, putting key tools and processes in place – requires a unique person who is good at the heavy lifting required to acquire market share and evangelize,” the firm said.
That person can be different from one needed by a more established company doing $10 million to $20 million per year in revenue, who understands how to improve on and tweak the work of his or her predecessor, according to ON Partners. For a $100 million-plus organization, the CRO needs to understand how to lead large teams in a complex, matrixed environment selling across multiple market segments on a global basis. That said, certain qualities remain consistent. Every CRO must know how to hire the right team, lead good people, and have a strong sense of how to build and scale a company.
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Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
