Case Studies

KFC is one of the most noted quick-service dining brands, with over 26K restaurants in 150 countries. As they continue to prioritize digital guest engagement and omnichannel experiences on the way to becoming 100% digital, the KFC Chief Digital Officer approached Purple Gold Partners to help with a search for a Head of Digital Product Engineering to execute KFC's vision for scalable digital platforms and build a best-in-class technical organization.

We worked directly with the CDO to understand the vision for the role and shaped an ideal candidate persona that struck a balance between strategic and technical leadership. We developed a go-to-market strategy and narrative to share with prospective candidates after aligning on the persona. 

Within 1 week of beginning the engagement, we shared an initial slate of 5 vetted profiles representing a mix of candidates from the Purple Gold network and newly identified candidates. 2 of the 5 moved immediately into a structured interview and leadership assessment process. We facilitated the entire end-to-end process, which included interviews with C-suite leaders across Yum Brands. We continued to source additional candidates in parallel to ensure our pipeline remained active and to mitigate process risk.

The first candidate we shared on our initial list (from the retail sector) progressed to the end of the process.  We partnered with the candidate and KFC on an equitable offer and received acceptance upon initial presentation.

The new leader is deeply engaging early and spent some of his onboarding time on the front lines in a KFC store to better understand customer and store experiences.

A leading global private equity portfolio company needed to strengthen its technology leadership to enhance its global team culture and lay a stronger, and more resilient, operational foundation for growth. The Global CIO approached Purple Gold Partners for advice on the role and to initiate a confidential search, as the role was replacing an incumbent in the role.

Purple Gold engaged with the Global CIO to deeply understand the key organizational, technical, and team/culture challenges and the vision for the next leader of the Technology Operations function.

Given the critical timing need, in parallel with executing a search agreement we drafted a candidate persona outlining ideal leadership qualities, job-specific skills, psychographics, and key challenges of the role. We leveraged the final version to develop a go-to-market role narrative. 

We built a pipeline of ~40 candidates leveraging the power of the Purple Gold network and additional talent channels, interviewed and assessed 10 candidates, and shortlisted a diverse slate of 4 candidates for interview within 2 weeks of beginning the search.

After 2 rounds of intereviews, the Global CIO prioritized and interviewed two finalists and asked for our perspective on who we would select for the role, given our prior experience as CIOs. We shared a balanced perspective of both candidates and an offer was made and accepted within 40 days of beginning the engagement.  

Before Day 1, the Purple Gold team traveled out of state to meet the new hire in person to support their transition and share additional perspectives on the key opportunities in the first 90-180 days. 

The new leader has hit the ground running, has enhanced the culture of the team operating across 4 countries, and has begun modernizing technical capabilities and hiring additional leadership talent.

A private equity-owned Quick Service Restaurant portfolio with ~7K restaurants globally is embarking on an omnichannel digital transformation to elevate customer and store experiences. The company needed to hire an experienced consumer digital product and CX leader to head all aspects of the digital experience transformation. 

As we were already engaged in supporting other searches on the Technology side of the company, we were asked to support the confidential exploration of candidates for the role. We worked directly with the Global Head of Customer Experience to understand the vision and "must haves" for the role as input to shaping the ideal candidate persona.

Once we finalized the persona, we reviewed 100+ candidates already pipelined and engaged for a technology executive role with the client. We identified 2 candidates that matched the role persona from the pipeline and positioned both with the client for an initial assessment. One candidate was quickly moved into a full-day final round with the Executive Committee.

We partnered on an offer structure for the top candidate and helped close the candidate in a competitive offer situation with another company.

The new leader was announced to the Board of Directors and is driving significant early value in transforming experiences and in the launch of new products to market in the first 6 months. 

 One of the largest transportation and logistics providers in the US is embracing technology innovation in an industry that has often resisted change. Their CIO approached Purple Gold Partners to support a search for a Chief Architect to drive a comprehensive technology strategy and a multi-year innovation roadmap across all business lines to disrupt the industry. 

We partnered with the CIO to co-create a persona for the new role, with a particular focus on strategic and innovation capabilities, and modern engineering and analytics. Based on the persona developed and key needs, we curated a list of industry verticals and companies to target outside the transportation segment, but with critical supply chain and logistics ecosystems.

We leveraged our network, candidates from prior searches, and a curated list of target firms to build a pipeline of 50+ candidates. We deeply assessed 10 candidates on key dimensions of the role and prioritized 4 for presentation to the CIO 

An offer was made to an enterprise architecture leader from our candidate shortlist, with deep and modern experience in B2B / B2C product manufacturing and global food service manufacturing and distribution.  

Following the offer acceptance, we spent additional time with the new hire to support transition readiness focused on organizational priorities and opportunities. The new leader has made early contributions in evolving the enterprise architecture function and driving modernization strategies

A growing global retail brand recognized the need to strengthen the foundation of its technology organization spanning IT governance and planning, financial management, infrastructure, and corporate technologies / ERP. After challenges finding a candidate on their own, Purple Gold Partners was approached to support the search for a Head of Enterprise Technology - a "builder" and visionary leader with proven experience leading transformations and financial and vendor management, ideally in a large retail, airline, or hospitality brand. 

The client shared the vision and profile for the role and we prioritized the development of a persona, go-to-market narrative, and curated list of target firms in a specific geographic market.

We developed a pipeline of 45 leaders leveraging the Purple Gold network, referrals, and research through alternative channels. We narrowed the list to 15 candidates and engaged in discussions and a deep assessment of each candidate using the persona as a guide.  We established weekly reviews of candidates with the Global CTO and refined a diverse candidate slate for interview, including a candidate outside of retail and hospitality that checked many boxes and we believed could make an industry transition.

After an interview process including multiple Executive Committee members, an offer was made to an exceptional, award-winning executive with global B2B and B2C manufacturing experience. The offer was accepted.

We recognized that the new hire would be transitioning into a new industry after more than two decades in manufacturing. Given our experience with the client, we were able to spend additional time focused on ensuring successful integration into a new industry and culture.

The new hire has been effective in assessing the technology landscape and beginning to develop plans to evolve governance, financial management, and management of enterprise platforms.

A global business services firm (B2B, B2C) was operating in a legacy data environment with complex and disparate sources, unreliable reporting and insights, and no data strategy, dedicated leadership, or funding. In a conversation with the Global CIO about their overall challenges, we recommended an approach to begin modernizing their data to empower their business. Specifically, we advised that they begin with a single, dedicated leader coupled with a small proof of concept project to build a cloud data environment for a single use case. They agreed and we set the wheels in motion.

While we were engaging in another search for the client, we recognized a strong, general technology leader from the Purple Gold network with infrastructure and data experience that could be an option for the data leadership role. This candidate was actively engaged in a different search with the client for another leadership role. We positioned this candidate with the Global CIO and re-directed the candidate from the prior search to the data leadership role.

We also provided the client with 2 consulting firm options that we had experience with as former CIOs, with strong data modernization experience leveraging cloud and AI capabilities. We facilitated introductions to help them assess market options.

Within 2 weeks of engaging in the initial discussion with the Global CIO on their approach to data, an offer was presented to the candidate we repositioned. We supported a effective transition and continue to stay close with the Global CIO and candidate. A consulting provider was also selected within a month and an engagement took shape to deliver a cloud-based POC for an initial business use case.

A growing, global specialty insurance / reinsurance firm had an opportunity to digitize its reinsurance and insurance trading ecosystem and needed a senior product leader to provide thought leadership and guide the agenda. The client approached Purple Gold Partners for assistance in hiring for this role in Bermuda requiring niche experience in digitization, automation, CRM, and underwriting.

As this was our first Bermuda-based placement, we focused significant attention on our approach to source candidates living in Bermuda. We did not limit our strategy to focusing only on peer firms in Bermuda. We opened our aperture and focused heavily on the digital and CRM capabilities of candidates in industries where digitizing an integrated ecosystem of products and services drives efficiency. We quickly identified 2 candidates to carry into interview rounds with the client - one from the industry and one from Tourism / Travel but with prior experience working for Salesforce and digital consultancies. For the latter, we believed that strong, proven digital experience could be an acceptable tradeoff for the the lack of insurance / underwriting experience which could be learned.

Within 30 days of opening the search for what was originally believed to be a "purple squirrel", an offer was accepted by the candidate from the Tourism industry with substantial CRM and digitization experience. While the initial learning curve around reinsurance and trading was steep, the new leader drove remarkable contributions in her first 6 months influencing the digital strategy across a complex ecosystem of products, vendors, and services.