Decision Report: Candidate 2, VP Sales / Revenue

Example report. The candidates are synthetic, built to show the format for the VP Sales / Revenue search.

I. The Decision in One Paragraph

The role signs large B2B partners, such as pension providers, employer-benefit platforms, charities and financial advisers, and turns their members into estate-planning and probate cases. It also has to grow the partnership team from seven people to about twenty, and carry its share of the 50,000-case target. The failure we test every candidate against is the closer: someone who signs partners, pushes members to convert, and hits the number for two quarters before complaints and partner churn catch up, in a business where many customers are older, grieving or both. Candidate 2 passes that test more cleanly than anyone in the final round. Over four years at a consumer fintech serving people approaching retirement, this candidate built a referral channel with pension providers and employers from nothing to 31% of new customers, signed 14 partners and lost only one, and hired and kept most of a team of nine. The catch, and the reason this report matters, is that Candidate 2 presents quietly in a panel interview and is easy to under-rate next to a more polished closer. Strong recommend. APP 60–76%, medium-high confidence.

II. The Shortlist Position

Candidate 2 is the recommend. The gap between how this candidate interviews and what the evidence shows is where the method earns its place on this search: a panel will tend to under-rate Candidate 2 and over-rate Candidate 3.

III. On Candidate 2: Six Signals

A panel read on Candidate 2 after one interview will likely land at 3 to 3.5 out of 5. Ours is closer to 4.5. That gap is the main finding of this report, and it comes down to six signals.

1. The channel has the same shape as yours: Partners are signed at the top, members are converted one at a time through an advice call, and revenue arrives months after signature. Candidate 2 has run that flow end to end, and talks about partners in terms of what their members convert into, never the logo. Their former CEO, on the reference call:

“Most people we interviewed wanted to sign big names. This one wanted to know how many members would actually pick up the phone.”

2. The numbers are documented, not asserted: Checked against board packs the candidate shared with consent: 14 partners signed in four years, 13 still live; 31% of new customers from the channel in the last full year, up from zero; median 7 months from first meeting to a live partner. On the case study we gave them Octopus Legacy’s own situation in outline: a large pension provider signed, member referrals arriving, and too few becoming cases. Candidate 2 went straight to the handoff between the partner and the first advice call, and cut a step from it before suggesting any new sales activity.

3. The team was built, and stayed: Hired nine people in two years, seven still in post, two promoted to manager. Asked about the two who left, Candidate 2 named the hiring mistake behind each one and what changed in their process afterwards. That matters for a role that has to hire about fifteen AEs and AMs.

4. The customer judgement holds under pressure: This is the dimension weighted highest for Octopus Legacy, and the one every candidate claims. Candidate 2 is the only candidate in the final round with a dated example of turning down revenue to protect customers: a partner that wanted a hard upsell built into the advice call, declined in the second year, at a cost of about 8% of that year’s pipeline. A peer referee, unprompted:

“Our members were mostly retired. The channel grew because the partners trusted that nobody would be pushed.”

5. The undersell is real and consistent: In interview, Candidate 2 described the referral channel as “something the team built”. Probed, the channel turned out to be their idea, their first three partners, and their hiring plan. The former CEO named the pattern without being asked: “You have to ask the second question. The first answer always gives the credit away.” We flag this as an undersell, a marker on the gap between how the candidate presents and what the candidate has done.

6. The challenge test passes: We put a framing to Candidate 2, that partner growth should be measured on partners signed, and asked them to argue against it. They did, immediately: “Signed partners are a vanity number. I would measure cases per partner at six months, because that is the number the partner renews on.” Pressed with a counter-argument, they held the position and explained it again, without heat.

IV. What This Report Does Not Ignore

Three risks, none of them a deal-breaker, all worth knowing before Day 1.

Charity partners are new: Every partner Candidate 2 has signed has been commercial. Charity partnerships run on recurring terms and slower decision-making. This is the one area of the role we would not describe as proven.

Pace under ambiguity: One reference: “Wants the plan written before moving. Gets there, and the plan is good, but give them a deadline.” At Octopus Legacy’s pace, expect to coach this in the first month and read it as style, not a warning sign.

The compensation read: Candidate 2 earns below the market for this scope today, because their current company is smaller. Anchoring the offer to their current package would read as their work being under-valued a second time, and makes the retention risk below more likely. We would offer at the midpoint of the agreed band.

V. Risk Profile: What Happens If You Hire Candidate 2

The failure mode at six months is a slow start that looks like under-performance. Candidate 2 builds the system before scaling it, so the first eight weeks will show fewer new partners than a closer would sign, and more time on the referral handoff and the team plan. Judged on partners signed alone, that reads as slow. Judged on cases per partner, it is the right order. The second risk is retention: Candidate 2 will want a seat in decisions about the advice service, not only the sales target. The Day 30 calibration report should therefore test the cases-per-partner trend before it tests partner count.

VI. Recommendation and Pressure Tests

Strong recommend on Candidate 2 unless one of the tests below produces evidence we have not yet seen. Each one runs inside your existing case-study and final-round stages.

1. The case-target probe: “Walk us from one new pension partner to 1,000 cases. Where does it break?” Pass: names the handoff to the Legacy Advisor teams as the main risk, with a fix.
2. The charity test: Ten minutes on how they would structure a recurring charity partnership. Pass: asks how charities measure success before proposing terms.
3. The CEO conversation: One question for Sam to ask: “What would you not do to hit 50,000 cases?” The wrong answer is a general statement about values. The right answer is a specific thing they have already refused to do, and what it cost.

VII. What Good Looks Like at Day 90

Three partners live, referral cases flowing from at least two of them, and the first four AE and AM hires made. These three signals are what the Day 30, 60 and 90 calibration reports track. If Day 90 shows them, the hire is inside the range we have called, and the profile carries into Octopus Legacy’s hiring pulse for the AE and AM hires that follow.