Caldwell Recruits Chief Marketing Officer for Sisu

February 16, 2021 – Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor, managing partner of the private equity and venture capital practice at Caldwell, recently placed Sun Lee as the new chief marketing officer of augmented intelligence solution company Sisu in San Francisco. In her role, Ms. Lee will report directly to founder and CEO Peter Bailis and lead all marketing functions. “Sun’s combination of creativity and pragmatic execution is impressive, which will be a valuable addition to our leadership team,” said Mr. Bailis. “She brings a breadth of brand, digital and messaging expertise that will accelerate our position as a leader in the analytics market.”

With over 15 years of experience leading key marketing initiatives for companies in data creation and data storage, Ms. Lee has a track record of accelerating customer acquisition and executing high-performance marketing campaigns. Prior to joining Sisu, she held the vice president of brand experience position at Pure Storage, a global IT company. Previously, Ms. Lee was vice president of brand experience at SurveyMonkey. “Sisu is building truly disruptive technology that transforms the way companies understand and make business decisions, utilizing all of their data,” said Ms. Lee. “When I saw the product for myself, I knew I had to join this company. I look forward to strengthening the understanding of what Sisu can do for data leaders and working to define the future of analytics.”

Ms. Chatfield-Taylor runs Caldwell’s global venture capital and private equity practice. She focuses on executive-level search for high-growth technology companies, with deep expertise in B2B SaaS, DevOps, e-commerce, consumer 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 their leadership teams. Ms. Chatfield-Taylor recently placed Spencer Lee as CFO of hims (IPO), Heidi O’Neill as a board member at Spotify (IPO), Prashanth Chandrasekaran as CEO for Stack Overflow and Desta Price as chief product officer of CM Group.

“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.”

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.”

Here’s a sampling of recent chief marketing officer searches taken from the Hunt Scanlon Media archives:

SPMB, an executive search firm that helps find transformative executives throughout Silicon Valley, has assisted in the placement of Andrew Savitz as the new chief marketing officer of Azul Systems. Dave Mullarkey led the assignment. “Andrew has a tremendous amount of experience across all aspects of marketing, and a proven track record of helping companies effectively message, drive awareness and leads, position products, create new market categories and enable high growth sales,” said Scott Sellers, co-founder, president and CEO of Azul.

CarterBaldwin Executive Search has assisted Christian Community Credit Union in the recruitment of Aaron Caid as chief marketing officer of this mission-driven credit union. “We are excited to have Aaron Caid join the Christian Community Credit Union family,” said Blair Korschun, CEO of the financial institution. “Aaron is a man of faith with vast experience in leading marketing and analytics for companies with millions of customers and accounts. He has chosen to use his talents to help us grow the credit union and to help us better serve our members.”

Following a nationwide search, New York-based retail and consumer focused executive search firm Herbert Mines Associates placed Gil Phipps as SVP and chief marketing officer of Sprouts Farmers Market in Phoenix, AZ. President Brenda Malloy led the search along with managing director Alison Weil and VP Caitlin Kenefick. “We’re extremely pleased to welcome Gil to the Sprouts team,” said Jack Sinclair, CEO of Sprouts. “The experience Gil brings will be instrumental in shaping Sprouts’ long-term strategy to build brand awareness and loyalty with our core shopper, including strengthening and defining our private label business.”

Hobbs & Towne placed Bill Graham as the new chief marketing officer of HomeWorks Energy in Medford, MA. CEO Andy Towne led the assignment along with vice president Paul Gilkerson. Mr. Graham is an accomplished marketer and experienced leader. He has expertise implementing metrics-driven direct marketing strategies, managing a P&L, growing businesses and building out committed and high-performing teams. His specialties include: multi-channel customer acquisition and service, international business, ecommerce, business development and negotiation, product innovation, leadership and general management.