The Power of Vision: Why Product & Technology Leaders Are Critical to Company Turnarounds
By Shawn Cole, Executive Recruiter & Cowen Partners Co-Founder — Shawn Cole is a trusted thought leader and premier authority on executive recruitment, visionary leadership, turnarounds, culture fit, C-suite assessment, executive compensation, and more across all industries. As President & Co-Founder of Cowen Partners, Shawn Cole is a pioneering leader and visionary thinker in C-Suite recruitment, known for sourcing exceptional talent while unearthing all-new insights about today’s executives and industry leaders.
Chief product officers (CPOs) and chief technology officers (CTOs) are two of the most crucial roles when it comes to facilitating corporate turnarounds. Why?
Often, both roles are heavily involved in facilitating the delivery of excellent products and services. Businesses that can achieve this goal can often win the loyalty of customers who appreciate a company that can meet their needs.
However, when a company is facing trouble, it’s important that those in the CPO and CTO seats are able to find ways to innovate so as to capture customers’ attention and regain market share.
Here is how visionary CPOs and CTOs can lead their organizations toward turnaround and how Cowen Partners finds executives with the qualities required to get the job done.
What Does It Mean to Have Vision?
For any leader, having vision means that they can imagine the future and develop a plan to bring what they see to life. In the case of a CPO or CTO, it means that they have the ability to:
- Understand the data surrounding market trends
- Understand customer needs and sentiments
- Foresee changes in both market trends and customer sentiments
- Integrate cutting-edge innovations to get ahead of the competition
According to Rob-Jan de Jong, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s highly acclaimed Wharton School, visionary leaders in positions like these must master the art of “seeing things early.” In his view, noticing something that will affect the company and doing something about it right away is how CPOs and CTOs can gain — or regain — a strategic advantage over competitors and drive change in a struggling organization.
How Cowen Partners Vets Visionary Product & Technology Leaders
At Cowen Partners, we have created a vast network of talented executives who have the experience, values, and vision it takes to turn a company around. However, we don’t just take a candidate’s word for it.
Our process ensures the right CPO or CTO pick by collecting concrete evidence of a candidate’s abilities through a strategic evaluation process.
Every executive search starts with a strategic alignment meeting. Recognizing that all organizations have varying needs when it comes to modern visionary leaders, including boundary-crossing leadership, we want to ensure that our team is clear on what your goals are, what the role entails, and what you’re looking for in your next product or technology leader.
We then reach out to candidates in our extensive database who we think would be a great fit.
Over the course of the search, which can take as little as 30 days, we partner with you to continually refine selection criteria. These are the standards by which we evaluate candidates.
Our team uses a unique mix of interviews, psychometric testing, and technical assessments to ensure your chosen candidate is prepared to build trust through transparent communication, develop and articulate a strategic vision for the future, and motivate the team to see it through.
How Real Companies Are Finding Success With Our Proprietary Process
At Cowen Partners, our process for finding and placing highly qualified executive leaders has been proven time and again by clients who trusted us when their business was on the line. Consider these examples and success stories from corporate teams whose visionary product and technology leaders led them to a brighter future.
Wesco
Wesco, a prominent paint and equipment supply business, has 45 years and over 200 locations under its belt. Yet, the company still found itself at risk of falling behind competitors due to building its operations on legacy technology infrastructure.
The Wesco team needed a chief information officer to transform the business and push it toward growth with a new ERP platform and greater information security measures.
The new CIO would be tasked with aligning technology strategy with business and operational plans to facilitate rapid expansion. The CIO would also need the ability to lead a distributed team across hundreds of locations.
We worked with the company to create a detailed job description. We then used a combination of behavioral interviews and leadership capability assessments to determine whether candidates had the capacity to support an expansive vision.
The selected candidate had not only the extensive experience our client’s business required but also a solid vision for the future. They were able to make an immediate strategic impact and begin driving IT transformation to set Wesco up to secure its place in the market.
Dutch Bros.
Dutch Bros was once the country’s largest privately owned coffee chain. In 2021, the company made its IPO debut. As the company began scaling to meet its IPO goals, its team realized the need for a CTO whose job would be to transform the company’s outdated IT systems.
The request was for our team to select a technology officer who could make their company a quick service leader.
Cowen Partners began searching for a Dutch Bros CTO who could secure buy-in from stakeholders at all levels, from entry-level employees to Wall Street investors.
Our executive search process, which involved understanding the ideal candidate and narrowing down the initial list with rigorous evaluations, resulted in Dutch Bros finding its CTO match in just 120 days. This ultimately allowed it to meet its IPO goals and experience the growth the company had hoped for.
The Transformative Power of Visionary Product & Technology Executives
Product and technology executives are essential to the turnaround process because their roles drive company growth.
They are tasked with discovering and investigating market trends and facilitating product development and sales in a way that meets customers’ needs and inspires their loyalty.
These roles are often cross-functional, which means they’re responsible for bringing the organization together to work toward common goals.
The ability of a CPO or CTO to transform an organization is only as effective as their leadership skills.
This is why it’s critical to thoroughly evaluate candidates before selecting them for these critical roles.
With the right people at the helm of your product development and technology divisions, your company will be well-positioned for a remarkable comeback.
How to Recruit Visionary Executives & Turnaround Leaders
Cowen Partners stands at the forefront of executive search, dedicated to sourcing visionary leaders who not only demonstrate exceptional qualifications but also embody the cultural and strategic vision of your organization. As a premier executive search firm, our mission is to empower companies to achieve sustainable success through leadership that aligns with their core values, drives transformation, and fuels long-term growth.
Specializing in executive search, Cowen Partners excels at connecting clients with the top 1% of leadership talent. We focus on identifying individuals who possess not only the skills to expand market share but also the cultural fit that is critical to fostering cohesion and sustained impact. By sourcing leaders who can scale organizations, create value, and deliver results, we build teams that thrive together and propel businesses forward.
Our search capabilities extend across diverse industries, supporting companies of all sizes—from early-stage ventures to publicly traded corporations and non-profits. We provide strategic placements across the C-suite, including private equity CEOs, VPs, and director-level leaders, ensuring that each executive aligns with your organization’s distinct objectives and long-term vision.
Cowen Partners is recognized for its pioneering approach to executive search, offering state-of-the-art resources that enhance our ability to identify and retain leaders who not only meet the demands of today’s business landscape but who are also poised to shape its future.
Discover how Cowen Partners consistently delivers exceptional leadership solutions nationwide by exploring our elite resources below.
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