Caldwell Places Chief Marketing Officer at Recorded Future 

January 29, 2020 – As business becomes more global and complex, and power shifts from producers of goods and services to consumers, the chief marketing officer’s job of planning and coordinating marketing activities has become more challenging — and much more influential. Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, managing partner of the private equity and venture capital practice at Caldwell, recently placed former Acquia executive Tom Wentworth as CMO of Recorded Future.

Mr. Wentworth was senior vice president of product marketing for Acquia. During his time in this role, Acquia acquired three companies to round out its digital experience management product portfolio. The firm also introduced simplified product packaging to better articulate its capabilities across multiple product lines. Acquia was acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $1 billion late last year.

Mr. Wentworth was formerly chief marketing officer of RapidMiner, a pioneer in data science and machine learning. In that role, he was responsible for global go-to-market strategy, demand generation, product marketing and communications. Earlier in his career, he was CMO of Episerver.

Recorded Future delivers security intelligence to amplify the effectiveness of security and IT teams in reducing exposure by uncovering unknown threats and informing better, faster decisions. Working to provide a singular view of digital, brand and third party risk, the Recorded Future platform provides proactive and predictive intelligence, analyzing data from open, proprietary and aggregated customer-provided sources. Recorded Future arms threat analysts, vulnerability management teams, security operations centers and incident responders with context-rich, actionable intelligence in real time that’s ready for integration across the security ecosystem.

Proven Recruiter

Ms. Chatfield-Taylor is managing partner of Caldwell’s private equity and venture capital practice and a member of the firm’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 Salt Lake City-based Global Access and RxWiki Inc., as well as the chief revenue officer at Spredfast and a board member at Austin-headquartered WP Engine.

Related: Hobbs & Towne Recruits Chief Marketing Officer for HomeWorks Energy

“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.”


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. 


“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.”

Chief Marketing Officers

As business becomes more global and complex, and power shifts from producers of goods and services to consumers, the chief marketing officer’s job of planning and coordinating marketing activities has become more challenging, recruiters say. Yet executive search firms are seeing no shortage of assignments for this important C-level position.

Current business landscape demands have only increased the contribution from CMOs, according to the latest research report from Forrester and Heidrick & Struggles. The survey found that CMOs are building strong relationships with the head of product and research and development to prepare their organizations for digital disruption.

“We see CMOs moving beyond functional expertise to assume responsibility for driving overall growth within their organizations,” said Sheryl Pattek, vice president, CMO executive partner at Forrester. “They are evolving into key strategic partners on the executive team, and know that collaboration with the rest of the C-suite will be instrumental to their success.”

Related: The Lancer Group Places Chief Marketing Officer for NAVEX Global

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

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