Scale-Up Executive Recruitment

Adrian Lawrence — Founder, Exec Capital

Executive search specialist | ICAEW Fellow | C-suite and senior appointments for UK scale-up businesses since 2018

Scale-up executive recruitment is structurally different from corporate executive recruitment because the stage mismatch problem is so common and so damaging. A CFO from a FTSE250 business who joins a forty-person scale-up will spend six months building processes that should have been built in six weeks, and will apply governance frameworks calibrated for a large institution to a business that needs speed and pragmatism. Conversely, a CFO who has only operated in small businesses may not have the investor relations, board reporting, or M&A capability that a Series B or C company needs. The right scale-up executive has operated in the band between early stage and large corporate — and knows how to build infrastructure without bureaucratising the culture that made the business successful. Finding them requires a network tuned to the growth company market rather than the corporate executive market. To discuss your requirement, call 020 3834 9616.

Exec Capital recruits C-suite and senior executives for UK scale-up businesses — typically venture-backed or growth equity-backed companies between Series A and pre-IPO, or founder-led businesses transitioning from the founder-managed phase to a professional executive structure. We recruit across CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, CMO, Chief Commercial Officer, and Chief People Officer appointments, with every search led personally by Adrian Lawrence FCA on a retained basis.

“We had just closed our Series B and the investors were clear that we needed a proper CFO — not the part-time FD we had been using, but a genuine CFO who had done this stage before and who could own the investor relations, the board pack, and the financial planning. Exec Capital placed a CFO who had been through two previous Series B-to-exit journeys. Within three months she had rebuilt our financial reporting, established our monthly board cadence, and was running our investor update process in a way that genuinely impressed our lead investor. It was a transformative hire.”

CEO, UK SaaS Business — Series B

What scale-up executive recruitment involves

The defining challenge of scale-up executive recruitment is stage-matching — finding executives whose experience is calibrated to where the business is and where it is going, rather than where they have been. The scale-up executive must be capable of building infrastructure and process in a resource-constrained environment where the institutionalised support of a large business does not exist, while simultaneously delivering the functional outcomes — financial reporting, commercial growth, operational scaling, technology delivery — that the business’s investors and board require.

The scale-up environment places three specific demands on executives that differ materially from the corporate context. Speed and pragmatism: decisions must be made faster with less data and less institutional support than corporate executives are accustomed to. Breadth over depth: the scale-up CFO typically owns finance, legal, and some HR; the scale-up COO typically owns operations, technology, and customer success; the scope of each role is broader than in a specialised corporate function. Culture preservation: the scale-up executive joins a business whose culture was built by founders and early employees, and must add process and structure without destroying the agility and identity that made the business successful in the first place.

Scale-up executive appointments by function

CEO / President — the transition from founder-CEO to professional CEO is one of the most consequential decisions a scale-up board makes. The right professional CEO for a growth-stage business combines strategic clarity with the operating pace the growth environment demands, and must be capable of managing the founder relationship constructively rather than creating the founder-CEO conflict that derails many otherwise strong scale-up transitions. See our CEO Recruitment page.

CFO — the most commonly required first professional C-suite hire at Series A and B. The scale-up CFO owns the financial reporting, the investor relations, the board pack production, and the financial planning that investors expect to see at each funding round. Their Series B or C experience is the most important qualification — having navigated institutional investor reporting, due diligence processes, and the financial governance requirements of VC-backed growth. See our CFO Recruitment page.

COO — the operational leader who professionalises the business’s operations, builds the management infrastructure, and allows the CEO to focus on strategy, fundraising, and external relationships. The scale-up COO must be capable of building operational processes from a low base without creating the bureaucracy that stifles growth-stage businesses. See our COO Recruitment page.

CTO / VP Engineering — the technology leadership appointment that determines whether the engineering organisation can deliver the product roadmap at the pace the growth plan demands. Scale-up technology leadership requires a specific combination of technical depth and team-building capability that is different from both the solo technical founder and the large-company engineering manager. See our CTO Recruitment and VP Engineering Recruitment pages.

Chief Commercial Officer / Chief Revenue Officer — the commercial leadership appointment that professionalises the revenue function, builds the sales and marketing infrastructure, and delivers the revenue growth that the investment case requires. Scale-up commercial leadership is a specific discipline — building commercial function from founder-led sales to a managed commercial process requires different skills from managing an established commercial organisation. See our Chief Commercial Officer Recruitment page.

The founder transition — managing the CEO succession

The founder-to-professional CEO transition is the most structurally complex executive appointment in the scale-up market. The founder has typically built the business around their personal network, judgment, and authority — and the transition to a professional CEO structure requires the board, the founder, and the incoming executive to navigate a relationship that has no perfect precedent and considerable emotional weight.

The most successful transitions are those where the founder’s ongoing role — as Chair, as Chief Product Officer, as non-executive — is clearly defined before the CEO appointment is made, and where the incoming CEO is selected not just for their executive capability but for their specific ability to manage the founder relationship constructively. We advise boards and founders on transition structure as part of every CEO mandate where the founder is remaining involved in the business, and we assess incoming CEO candidates against the founder relationship dimension as explicitly as against their functional and strategic capability.

The candidate pool

Scale-up executives with multiple growth-stage track records — CFOs, COOs, and CCOs who have been through two or three Series A-to-exit journeys in comparable businesses — are the primary pool for scale-up mandates. Their combination of stage-appropriate experience and pattern recognition across growth-stage challenges makes them immediately deployable and materially more effective than executives whose experience is concentrated at either the very early or large-corporate end of the spectrum.

Executives from PE-backed businesses of comparable scale and growth orientation are a relevant adjacent pool — PE-backed businesses in the £5m-£50m revenue range operate with many of the same structural characteristics as VC-backed scale-ups: resource constraints, investor reporting requirements, management team building challenges, and the pressure to deliver growth within a defined investment timeline.

Working with Exec Capital on a scale-up mandate

Every scale-up executive mandate is led personally by Adrian Lawrence FCA. For the PE-backed context that overlaps significantly with the scale-up executive market, see our Private Equity Executive Search hub. For the founder transition and CEO succession specifically, see our CEO Recruitment page.

Scale-Up Executive Search with Exec Capital

Exec Capital recruits C-suite and senior executives for UK scale-up businesses from Series A through to pre-IPO. CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, CCO and specialist appointments. Stage-matched candidates with multiple growth-stage track records. Led personally by Adrian Lawrence FCA on a retained basis.

Stage-matched

Executives with growth-stage track records — not corporate executives misapplied

Series A to pre-IPO

CEO, CFO, COO, CTO and commercial leadership across all growth stages

Retained search

Led personally by Adrian Lawrence — not contingency recruitment

Tell us about your scale-up requirement →
Contact us
or call 020 3834 9616

Scale-Up Executive Appointments

CEO Recruitment — Founder transition and professional CEO appointments for scale-up businesses
CFO Recruitment — Series-stage CFO with investor relations and funding round experience
COO Recruitment — Operational leadership for scale-up professionalisation
CTO Recruitment — Technology leadership for product-led scale-up businesses
Chief Commercial Officer Recruitment — Commercial function build and revenue growth leadership
VP Engineering Recruitment — Engineering team scaling below CTO level
Private Equity Executive Search — PE-backed growth company executive appointments

Sources and Further Reading

Scale-Up Executive Recruitment