Stage
Series A
Hired
Stephen Spence
Category
B2B
Role location
UK
“Ben Markland and the 360Leaders team ran the process of finding Stephen Spence, our VP Engineering and our first executive hire. Having never worked with someone in this role, their expert advice was invaluable at every stage: from running-through the different types of profiles we could hire, through to making the final offer. We will 100% work with 360Leaders again and would thoroughly recommend partnering with them to hire executive leaders who’ll make a real impact.”
Ben Peddie, CTO & Founder
Energy
Technology
Growth
Series A
UK
Emitwise needed a hands-on technical leader – a VP Engineering who would own the development of the Emitwise platform, taking a lead on the overall architecture whilst working collaboratively with the product organisation. The VP Engineering would also need to devise an appropriate hiring strategy that would enable the engineering team to triple in size over the next 12 months.
The desired profile was someone with experience of rapidly scaling engineering teams in a B2B SaaS environment. It was important they had worked with AI/ML/NLP technologies before, and that they had experience of architecting, implementing and operationally running large-scale data infrastructure platforms.
Stephen Spence has been through similar journeys and understands the challenges that come with scaling an engineering function. He went on a significant growth journey at SwiftKey, taking them through to acquisition by Microsoft in 2016. Thanks to his strong team-building expertise (which was a key requirement for Emitwise), Stephen scaled the engineering team at Privitar from 12 to 62, which saw the business grow 100% over a 2-year period – over half of which was in engineering alone. He is transparent, direct, and straight-talking in style; championing a ‘we’re in this together’ approach to leadership. He leads by consensus and advocates collaboration with autonomy. He is passionate about mission-driven offerings that make a difference.
“Ben Markland and the 360Leaders team ran the process of finding Stephen Spence, our VP Engineering and our first executive hire. Having never worked with someone in this role, their expert advice was invaluable at every stage: from running-through the different types of profiles we could hire, through to making the final offer. We will 100% work with 360Leaders again and would thoroughly recommend partnering with them to hire executive leaders who’ll make a real impact.”
Ben Peddie, CTO & Founder
Investors:
True Ventures, Saltwater Capital, Social Impact Capital