Artico Search Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for nfinite

June 7, 2022 – 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. In one recent search, Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, co-founder of Artico Search, recruited Christopher Day as the new chief revenue/sales officer for nfinite, a New York-based visualization and E-commerce merchandizing company. Mr. Day most recently served as senior vice president, sales at Aurea Software. In this position, he was responsible for building the fastest growing part of the Aurea business, a sales team based on metrics, data and quality coaching / mentoring. Before that, he was divisional vice president sales at Bazaarvoice.

nfinite leverages proprietary computer-generated imagery technology to create any kind of visual content for their products through virtual shooting, enabling retailers to replace photographic pictures to showcase their products online or in catalogs. The company recently raised $15 million in Series A funding led by USVP (US Venture Partners). “The E-commerce and merchandizing categories are facing radical and rapid change,” said USVP general partner Dafina Toncheva, who has now joined the nfinite board. “Under Alexandre de Vigan’s leadership, the company has already gained a strong competitive barrier to entry in the fast-emerging space. We are looking forward to helping nfinite scale and navigate what we believe will be hockey-stick growth trajectory.”

Fast Start

With offices in San Francisco, New York, and Austin, 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.

Artico Search Launches to Help Companies Build, Scale and Protect
No one could argue that Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor and Matt Comyns, both of whom recently departed from Caldwell to co-found their own executive search firm, Artico Search, are anything less than ground-breaking search leaders. They are both among the very best in their respective specialties, recruiting some of the most sought after, and costliest, hires in the search industry and building successful practices and teams in their areas of specialty. In joining forces, they are looking to create a powerhouse search brand that reflects their experience, passion, and core values focused on delivering the people to drive change and transformation in the tech industry.

Ms. Chatfield-Taylor’s team focuses on executive-level search for scaleup 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.

Ms. Chatfield-Taylor recently placed Wendy Werve as chief marketing officer for Nashville, TN-based CM Group, a family of marketing technology companies. Ms. Werve was previously CMO with Virgin Pulse for over six years. She brings more than 20 years of experience developing, leading and executing growth-focused marketing strategies for a diverse range of technology, B2B and SaaS software companies, from start-up to IPO, mid-market to $1 billion-plus.

Recruiting Chief Revenue Officers

Hunt Scanlon Media has reported on a number of search firms finding chief revenue officers for their clients. Here’s a look at searches either underway or recently completed:

The Lapham Group placed Sean Rider as the new chief revenue officer of One Concern Inc. in Menlo Park, CA. CEO Craig Lapham led the assignment. “We’re thrilled to welcome Sean to the One Concern team,” said Ahmad Wani, co-founder and CEO of One Concern. “Sean’s established leadership and expertise across strategic risk finance and the alternative risk space will enable us to offer our clients unparalleled value in the resilience space.” The Lapham Group is a leading boutique executive search firm headquartered in New York City.

Benchmark Executive Search, a boutique provider of cybersecurity talent, recently placed Ben Wenger as chief revenue officer of Dedrone in San Francisco. In his role, Mr. Wenger heads global sales to provide counter-drone technology to enterprise and government customers globally. “We are excited to follow Ben’s progress as he and the Dedrone team solve problems for new federal and commercial customers,” said Jeremy King, president of Benchmark.

Executive recruitment firm Buffkin / Baker has been selected to assist in the search for a new chief revenue officer for independent data cooperative Alliant. The search firm is seeking a dynamic sales leader and innovator in the data as a service (DaaS) arena as the company drives continued growth through multi-channel consumer marketing solutions. Candidates must be experienced executive with a proved track record of leading and developing high-performing sales and sales operations teams, said the search firm. They must also have hands-on experience selling consumer data solutions direct to mid-level to enterprise brands, understanding how data can impact direct and digital marketing initiatives.