The financial services team at tml Partners, senior marketing headhunters, have worked with Planet to build out their entire marketing leadership function

Planet is continuously looking for better ways to serve its customers across the world and make the payments world a little easier for everyone. In the early days, the business set out to simplify the complex payment process of VAT refunds for international shoppers in Europe. Fast-forward to today, and their single payments platform is unique in the industry – the only one that offers acquiring, processing, digital wallets, VAT refunds and currency conversion services.

With ambitious growth plans and a clear vision to take Planet to the next level, Rory O’Neil, Chief Marketing Officer, recognised that the Marketing team needed to add critical skills, processes, and systems to deliver high-quality leads to the organisation.

Planet worked with senior marketing headhunters Malisha Patel and Simon Bassett to develop the specific briefs for the talent acquisition program, drawing on their knowledge of key skill sets available in the market for 4 critical hires: 

• VP of Digital Marketing 
• VP of Hospitality & Retail Marketing 
• VP of Marketing Operations 
• Senior Director, Partner Marketing 

Working with Planet on a retained project, Malisha Patel was able to utilise her existing network across fintech, payments and drawing on the wider business network in the B2B tech, retail and hospitality space to quickly identify the right candidates for each of these hires. Malisha successfully appointed:

• Alvaro Alberdi Cañizares into the VP of Digital Marketing role (based in Spain): 

Alvaro is a digital expert and although based in Spain, after initial conversations, it was very clear that he had the right expertise, skills and know-how to be perfect for the role at Planet. He was driving digital first lead generation strategies for a B2B hospitality SaaS company and wasn’t actively looking for a new role at the time. However, the challenge and opportunity to build digital infrastructure to drive commercial growth was an exciting prospect. After only the first conversation, both Alvaro and Rory knew it would be a great match.

• Karla Pearce into the VP of Hospitality & Retail Marketing role:

Karla is a commercial go-to-market and lead generation marketing strategist who brought excellent knowledge and experience of marketing to the hospitality sector from a B2B tech business. She understood the assignment and felt it would be a great opportunity to move into the exciting and growing fintech space, starting her new role 4 months after initial engagement. 

• Steffen Drucks into the VP of Marketing Operations role:

Steffen had been with his previous business for 10+ years, and whilst he wasn’t actively looking, he was open to hearing about new opportunities. A candidate Malisha had been working with for several months, Steffen is a marketing operations expert who was in high-demand during the process, but Planet recognised his skills and talent, and made an offer to him within 2 weeks of initial engagement. 

• Emily Fincham into the Senior Director, Partner Marketing role:

Emily was also headhunted by Malisha for this role. She brought good experience across B2B tech and fintech with a strong pedigree in marketing and partnership marketing in her recent career. Her knowledge of the fintech and payments ecosystem would be highly valuable for this role. She was successfully offered the role in the summer of 2022. 

Partnering closely with the HR team and Rory, tml Partners acted as an extension to the Planet brand and were able to ensure it was a quick, smooth and efficient process. 

Rory O’Neil, Chief Marketing Officer at Planet said:

“We felt the team partnered with us from the start, allowing us to mine their knowledge of talent to help us craft job descriptions and packages that would attract the right talent.  

The team created a rock-solid candidate briefing pack and drew up a quality shortlist for three leadership roles within three to four weeks. By 120 days of starting our engagement, we had on-boarded a new VP Marketing Operations, VP Digital Marketing and VP Hospitality Marketing to upgrade our leadership talent. Malisha and the team supported our internal recruitment team to find five key roles within the team that accelerated our transformation.

The tml team understand the market, can help you refine and develop your search requirements, are connected to marketing talent that can help you find the quality you seek for business goals. They will partner with you to advise and secure talent irrespective of your hiring model or challenge.”

The team have settled in well and started making positive transformations across marketing and driving impact and growth for the organisation. 

Alvaro, VP of Digital, shares his experience of working with Malisha:

“tml partners came to me with a great career opportunity. I was happy in my job, highly valued, but otherwise very comfortable. I wasn’t even in listening mode, but Malisha’s warmth, approachability and professionalism made me sit and listen. At no point did she try to push me into anything. Instead, she was a constant support during the process and together we assessed the situation honestly and objectively, coming to the conclusion that no one built anything great from the comfort zone. It was a challenging move, but the right one.

One year later, I couldn’t be happier to have made that decision. Malisha was always on my side. I have complete confidence in her and she will be the first person I turn to when I decide to take my next career step.”

Karla, VP of Hospitality Marketing said:

“It was great working with tml partners, they really care about candidates and stay true to what the company needs. I worked with Malisha on both the candidate and company side. She was so patient, had a very bespoke approach and followed up diligently to work towards deadlines. I would definitely recommend tml to anyone looking to recruit within marketing.”

Who are tml Partners?

tml Partners are a specialist marketing headhunter with access to a global network of marketing leaders.

Whether you’re seeking interim or permanent solutions, our team have the expertise to support across various sectors and locations.

To learn how tml Partners can help you, get in touch with Malisha Patel: