The hire you make today should still be the right one in three years.
Executive search for commercial leadership across Europe. Built so appointments hold, not just close.
Commercial leadership only. That is the whole remit.
Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Presales, RevOps and Partnerships: the functions that carry revenue. We do not run technical, finance or general management searches, which is why we can hold a genuine view on who is good in ours.
We work alongside internal talent teams, not around them. Your recruiters keep the process and the candidate relationships; we add the layer that is hard to see from inside: the comparator set, the live ranges, and the leaders who are not applying.
“Darren and the team at Animate have been critical in our European expansion plans. As we looked to expand into countries where we had no local resources, Darren truly functioned as a valued partner and an extension of our internal recruiting team.”
Technology and SaaS
Enterprise tech, SaaS, fintech, data infrastructure and AI, from Series A scale-ups through to established firms.
Industrial and Automation
Industrial automation, collaborative robotics, industrial software and Industry 4.0. Long cycles, technical buyers.
Growth and Scale-up
Funded scale-ups, typically Series A to D, building or restructuring commercial teams across several markets at once.
“A particularly challenging role to fill, requiring deep understanding of the talent landscape and excellent candidate mapping. His ability to guide the conversation and act as a strategic thought partner was invaluable.”
Ten countries, one view of the market.
A search across three European markets usually means briefing three firms and getting three opinions back. Animate runs it as one search, one standard, one partner.
Animate Atlas, our own intelligence platform, reads more of the market than any team could by hand. A partner decides what it means.
Begin the search knowing the brief is real.
In the first week the profile is confirmed against the market, the money is benchmarked, and every stakeholder stands behind one brief. By week three you hold the Market Map: the comparator set, the live ranges, and who is genuinely reachable.
view Nothing heard yet
“The profile we were looking for was quite unique. In the end, we had a tough time choosing among four finalists. I don’t believe we would have found any of the finalists on our own, or been provided the Animate framework to make the best decision with a modest amount of effort.”
Notes from the European market.
Same title, different job: the VP Sales market in Europe, H2 2026
What senior commercial leaders in European SaaS should expect for the rest of this year, and what has changed in the specification since they last went to market.
Read the noteTell us about the role. We will tell you what the market makes of it.
Describe the role and the people around it. You will get a view on the market, not a pitch.