Caldwell Fills Key Posts for PE-Backed Episerver and Tricentis

July 8, 2020 – Executive search firms have been stepping up their efforts to assist private equity-backed firms across the nation find top level talent, including chief people officers who are becoming central to organizations grappling with the human resource impact of COVID-19. Meanwhile, as businesses become more complex as a result of the ongoing pandemic, marketing activities are moving center stage, and that is leading to a power shift in the C-suite to chief marketing officers, creating a surge in demand for the best ones money can buy.

Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, managing partner of the private equity and venture capital practice at Caldwell, has a knack for finding both. She recently placed Kirsten Allegri Williams as the new chief marketing officer of Episerver and Jacki Hertenstein as the chief people officer of Tricentis.

“What attracted me to Episerver the most was the breadth of its portfolio and how clearly its digital experience solutions are tied to business growth,” said Ms. Allegri Williams. “The global crisis is a turning point for every industry. There is an undeniable shift toward digital-first which requires differentiated brand experiences and the need for CMOs, CIOs, and e-commerce leaders to rapidly adapt to changing conditions. Our customers need scalable technology with AI and actionable insights to solve real-world problems and create personalized engagement – we provide that in Episerver Content Cloud, Commerce Cloud and, now, Intelligence Cloud.”

As CMO, Ms. Allegri Williams will lead global marketing and communications strategy at Episerver, overseeing the brand consolidation for Episerver’s Q4 2019 acquisitions of B2B commerce leader Insite Software and content personalization and analytics provider Idio.

Her background suits her well for this role. Previously, Ms. Allegri Williams was CMO for SAP Successfactors, where she led the end-to-end global marketing strategy and team.

Chief Marketing Officers Gaining Momentum As Business Game Changers
Today’s CMO works with the CEO to accelerate the organization and drive transformation. CMOs also collaborate with other members of the C-suite, especially with a company’s top HR executive to shape the company brand. 

Episerver empowers businesses to scale through the most customer-centric approach to digital experiences. Its Customer-Centric Digital Experience Platform features best-in-class content management and robust commerce, both backed by AI powered data and personalization solutions. The platform has consistently earned industry, analyst and media recognition for its vision, capabilities and customer commitment.

Tricentis’ New Chief People Officer

Ms. Hertenstein most recently served as vice president of people at Pindrop Security, a company with solutions designed to protect some of the biggest banks, insurers, and retailers in the world using patented technology that extracts an unrivaled amount of intelligence from every call encountered. Before that, she was head of HR at AirWatch, a unified endpoint management technology. She also gained HR experience with Manhattan Associates and KSA.

Tricentis, backed by Insight Venture Partners, is a global leader in enterprise continuous testing, widely credited for reinventing software testing and delivery for DevOps and agile environments. The Tricentis AI-based, continuous testing platform provides automated testing and real-time business risk insight across your DevOps pipeline. This enables enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation by dramatically increasing software release speed, reducing costs, and improving software quality. Tricentis has more than 1,800 customers, including the largest brands in the world, such as Accenture, Coca-Cola, Nationwide Insurance, Allianz, Telstra, Dolby, RBS, and Zappos.

Wendy’s Chief People Officer Adopts Blended Recruiting Strategy
Today, the chief people officer position is still a relatively new title within the HR function. It first appeared about a decade ago. But now, as companies look to build internal brand awareness and set their sights more on establishing and driving their own …

Caldwell’s private equity and venture capital practice enlists a group of search consultants who share domain knowledge, relevant search experience and significant operational expertise with the firm’s private equity and venture capital clients. Many of these professionals hold firsthand knowledge of what it takes to succeed in this challenging and complicated environment.

Related: Caldwell Recruits CFO for Helix As Role Becomes Success Driver across Private Equity Sector

Equally important, Caldwell said it works to understand the back stories of the major players who can move objectives forward and leverages this insight to uncover special talent for the private equity marketplace

Proven Recruiter

Ms. Chatfield-Taylor is a member of Caldwell’s technology, consumer, digital and media teams. She focuses on executive-level search for high-growth technology companies, with deep expertise in business-to-business, SaaS, social, eCommerce, gaming and other transformative technologies. She has completed more than 50 CEO searches as well as other C-level assignments for her clients, with a deep passion and expertise in helping to diversify VC and PE-backed company boards and leadership teams. Ms. Chatfield-Taylor recently filled the CEO positions for Stack Overflow and Stoplight IO.

“Mercedes is the foremost search professional in the high-growth technology venture capital sector today,” said John Wallace, chief executive officer of Caldwell. “Her reputation for her relentless drive, client commitment and impeccable execution precedes her.”

“For years, Mercedes has served in an advisory capacity to a roster of top-tier venture capital and private-equity firms, assisting her clients and their portfolio companies in recruiting leaders focused on value creation,” he said. “She is comfortable serving as a behind-the-scenes executive coach to early stage founders and as a trusted advisor to public company boards of directors.”

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media

Related: Larger Funds Bring Increased Competition for Private Equity Talent