Appointing a Senior Marketing Director to Relaunch a Carved-Out PE-backed Metering Business A large water technology group was carving out the metering company that a private equity firm had acquired. The newly created global leader in smart metering, with a predominant focus on water metering, retained Pacific International Executive Search to appoint a Senior Director of Marketing. The business needed a marketing leader who could establish its brand and build its reputation as a newly independent company. Executive SearchFemale Leaders and Diversity Strategies Industrial Goods and Engineering Case Study Details The Challenge Pacific began the search before the two parties had completed the separation, so the project started confidentially and became public only once that process closed. The former parent retained the North American operation and divested the remainder, requiring the business to build its market position while establishing its identity as a standalone company, independent of a parent name that carried real weight in the sector. Marketing sat at the centre of that effort, spanning digital, trade fairs and product marketing in a genuinely end-to-end leadership remit. The role called for a particular kind of leader. Marketing had previously focused solely on execution, and the new business now wanted true marketing leadership: a proactive, creative function that could set strategy and drive its own initiatives. The incoming director would also need to manage stakeholders across both the business and its new owner, the PE company and be willing to travel regularly to their head office in Germany. The Solution Rather than confining the search to the water or metering sector, Pacific took a deliberately broad view, recognising that the priority was leadership calibre and transformation experience rather than narrow domain knowledge. The team opened the search across the industrial manufacturing sector, which broadened the pool considerably and enabled them to bring forward candidates who could offer a fresh perspective on establishing the new brand and who had a proven track record in the industrial space. The search focused on 3 countries simultaneously representing the company’s core markets: the UK, France and Germany. The results of that approach showed early. Pacific’s first shortlist was exceptionally strong, and the candidates the team presented impressed at client interviews, giving the client an additional set of strong fallback leaders. The team ran a structured process across both the business and the private equity owner, showcasing each candidate’s skills, cultural fit, and communication styles during weekly update calls. Shortlisted candidates swiftly progressed to in-person client interviews and Pacific maintained momentum through a tight skills assessment and offer stage. The pace was notable: the final interviews took place in mid-December, with the client offer following shortly afterwards, concluding the project just 2 months after it started. The Results The search culminated in appointing an exceptional female marketing leader from an industrial background outside the water sector, bringing exactly the fresh, cross-sector perspective the business wanted as it re-established itself. Following brief negotiations, she accepted the offer the same day the client made it, concluding a strategically critical search within an exceptionally tight timeframe. She now leads the marketing function as the business builds its independent identity rooted in strong product trust, and develops a more proactive, creative team. This appointment reflects the trusted partnership Pacific International has built with the client. That partnership continues today: the client has retained Pacific to advise on additional senior leadership mandates as the business grows toward independence.