Securing a CTO for a Pre-launch Solar Innovator in 70 Days

At this critical stage, the CTO was the single most important hire. Until now, the business had delivered its software through external partnerships, and the founder had sole responsibility for translating specialist, industry-specific requirements into a tangible, in-house product. The role brief was demanding: a technologist fluent in data-intensive environments where hardware and software work as one, able to define the technology roadmap and personally oversee its execution. Just as importantly, this could not be a hands-on engineer alone. With the platform built to scale, the company needed someone with the headroom to grow alongside it, to sit beside the CEO and founder as a strategic partner and help shape the organisation’s future direction.

Several factors made the search difficult. The company was an unknown brand with almost no market presence, privately funded, and fewer than ten people strong. It also did not yet know precisely what it needed, which meant Pacific was engaged as much as an adviser as a search partner. The relationship itself ran deep. Pacific had known the founder for more than five years, a connection that began when she was a candidate and matured through regular contact and shared market insight. To make this pivotal hire, she turned to a partner she knew, trusted, and recognised as genuinely networked across the sector.

Pacific has appointed many senior technology leaders, but the environment here was evolving quickly, so a current, precise understanding of the company’s position mattered more than any template. Pacific sat down with the founder and her advisers to map the business’s strengths, gaps, and capabilities, then built a clear candidate profile. Because this was a data-intensive business, the resulting market map reached well beyond solar. Pacific searched across connected hardware and software organisations wherever devices feed a system with continuous data, drawing on fields as varied as healthcare, energy technology, sensors, and meteorology before narrowing to specific target companies and, within them, specific talent.

The search then moved from Pacific’s existing network, through trusted referrals, to the direct approach of passive candidates, all guided by the market-mapping strategy agreed with the client. Because Pacific already understood the market and candidate calibration, often the slowest and most frustrating part of a technology search when handled by generalists, and the search continued at pace. Two challenges shaped the work. First, persuading candidates to back an unrecognised brand called for a thorough grasp of the company’s performance and ambitions, translated into a credible, confident pitch. Second, in a team of fewer than ten, cultural fit carried unusual weight, so every candidate presentation included a careful read of temperament, attributes, and how each person would strengthen, or unsettle, a small and finely balanced group. With most candidates weighing several opportunities at once, Pacific worked at pace, managed expectations closely, and stayed transparent with the client, pushing the process forward when it mattered.

The search moved quickly and with intent. Within a week of the kick-off call, Pacific had completed its strategy session, market mapping, and first long list. The team presented candidates within the first fortnight, and across the engagement Pacific put forward eight, of whom five progressed to first and, in some cases, second and third-round interviews. The process produced a single offer, which Pacific helped secure against a competing counter-offer, and the search closed in roughly seventy days.

For a business where so much rested on one appointment, and for a founder relationship built over five years and now tested professionally for the first time, the outcome mattered. Led by the Head of Energy Sector in London, with cross-border collaboration with Pacific’s team in Germany, the engagement overdelivered, and the partnership looks set to continue as the company scales. It clearly illustrates Pacific International’s approach: sector fluency that shortens the path to the right leader, judgement applied to culture as well as capability, and a commitment to relationships that outlast any single search.

Angelika Möbius, Founder & CEO of the Stealth-mode solar AI start-up, commented:

Pacific impressed me from the very beginning. The team took us seriously as an early-stage company and invested thoroughly in understanding what we truly needed from this critical CTO hire. They translated that into an exceptionally precise and high-quality search.

What set them apart was that they went beyond the search itself. Pacific advised us on shaping the role, benchmarking it against the market, and positioning ourselves to attract the right calibre of leader. That guidance proved just as valuable as the placement.

The speed and agility of the process never came at the expense of quality. Throughout, Rupert and the team were highly responsive, thoughtful and genuinely committed to getting this right for us. I came away impressed by both the calibre of the work and the way they partnered with us as advisers, not just recruiters.

I would recommend Pacific without hesitation. They will be my first call for future key hires.