Head of Data for a GCC B2B logistics scale-up

The departing Head of Data had built the function over four years from a single analyst into a 22-person organisation across data engineering, analytics engineering, BI, and a small data-science squad. The successor needed to inherit her team without disturbing the operating cadence and grow the function over the following 18 months as the company moved into Series C.

The role was sensitive enough that the COO had asked the founder of one of our peer firms (a US-headquartered global executive search firm) for a confidential opinion. That firm declined the engagement on a quoted retainer fee that was approximately 3.5× ours and would have committed the COO to a 16-week minimum process. The COO's view was that the firm was right about the process complexity but wrong about the right firm to run it. He came to us on a Tuesday and signed the engagement letter on the Friday.

The brief itself was an exercise in restraint. The succession criterion meant the search was for a leader who could resist the obvious temptation to rebuild a working function. Aisha spent the first two weeks running calibration conversations not with candidates but with the four reports of the departing leader — to understand, in detail, what good leadership of this team would look like from the inside.

We mapped 38 candidates across the GCC, Singapore, the UK, and the East Coast US. Of those 38, 24 met the experience floor and were approached. 19 took a first-round call, of which 6 were declined at first-round on the inheritance criterion (each had a clear and articulated thesis for restructuring an analogous team — a thesis that, if executed at this client, would have hit the team like a hammer).

A long list of 10 went to second-round. A shortlist of 4 was presented in week 7. Two of the 4 were UAE-based, one was London-based, one was Singapore-based. Three on-site loops happened in weeks 8 to 11. The fourth candidate withdrew in week 9 to take an internal promotion at his existing employer.

Reference checks and offer-shape ran in parallel. Offer accepted in week 13. Counter-offer from the existing employer was declined.

The placed candidate had been running a 16-person analytics engineering function inside a peer logistics company in Dubai. She moved without disrupting either organisation's rhythm — the existing team felt heard, the leaving leader had endorsed the choice, and the COO's leadership group has held cadence through the transition.

Six months in, the function has hired three additional ICs (one of them through us as a follow-on placement). The COO has referred us to two peer COOs, one of whom became a retained client in early 2026.