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Role guide

CRO and VP Sales search for scale-ups

The wrong revenue leader costs a year of plan. We run retained, confidential search for CROs, VPs of Sales and regional leaders, with a shortlist in 14 days and structured assessment against your stage.

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Key facts

UK VP / CRO OTE
£320k–£430k

£170k–£230k base

US VP / CRO OTE
$400k–$600k

$200k–$300k base

Equity
0.5%–1.5%

Typical Series B leadership grant

Engagement
Retained

Staged fee, guaranteed focus

Stage fit beats brand name

A leader who scaled a business from $50m to $150m is often the wrong hire at $5m, and the reverse is equally true. We define the stage problem first, whether that is finding repeatability, building a second line, opening a region or professionalising forecasting, then map against people who have solved that exact problem.

Every leadership search is confidential by default. Candidates are approached without your name until they are qualified and under NDA where required.

What we test in a leadership search

Numbers first: team quota, attainment, retention of their own hires and forecast accuracy against actuals. Then operating model, meaning what they actually changed in territory design, comp plans, pipeline hygiene and hiring bar.

We reference into the layers most search firms skip: the AEs who reported to them, the CFO who saw the forecast and the founder who lived with the results.

Board-ready process

Investors ask for evidence, so we provide it: the market map, the approach and response data, calibrated scorecards per candidate and written references. It also gives you leverage in the offer conversation, because you know exactly where each candidate sits against the market.

2026 pay benchmarks

What these roles pay

RoleUKUSNote
Sales Director / RVP£120k–£150k base · £240k–£300k OTE$180k–$230k base · $360k–$450k OTETeam quota 5–6x, equity meaningful
VP / CRO (EMEA or NA)£170k–£230k base · £320k–£430k OTE$200k–$300k base · $400k–$600k OTEEquity typically 0.5–1.5% at Series B

Full dataset: 2026 GTM salary and hiring benchmarks. Model the cost of a vacant seat with the quota loss calculator.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Should a CRO search be retained or contingent?
Retained. Leadership searches are confidential, need proactive approaches to people who are not looking, and require a guaranteed level of focus and reference depth. Contingent works well for individual contributor volume, but it is the wrong instrument for a hire that sets the plan.
How much equity does a VP Sales expect at Series B?
Typically 0.5% to 1.5%, vesting over four years with a one-year cliff, alongside a £170k to £230k base in the UK or $200k to $300k in the US. Candidates increasingly ask for acceleration on change of control, which is worth deciding before the offer stage.
What does GTM Search cost?
Contingent searches are charged as a percentage of first-year base salary, payable only on placement. Retained and RPO engagements are staged or fixed-fee and work out lower per hire at volume. We quote before any work starts, with no fee for the market map.
How long does a search take?
You receive a shortlist within 14 days of kick-off. Median time from kick-off to signed offer across our 2025 to 2026 searches is under six weeks, with the interview process itself the usual bottleneck rather than pipeline.
Contingent, retained or RPO: which should we use?
Contingent suits one-off or opportunistic hires. Retained suits leadership and confidential searches where you need guaranteed focus. RPO suits teams hiring five or more revenue seats in a year and wanting a single embedded partner.

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