Having previously worked with Pareto to recruit, place, and train their graduate sales talent through a bespoke sales programme, the GSMA had approached Pareto with an issue—eyes set on US expansion, the organisation lacked the personnel necessary to recruit for its business-critical roles. Looking to set up a US office, the business required an Assistant Sales Director to support its growth targets and continue to have a significant impact on the wider telecommunications industry.

A well-respected association within the telco sector, GSMA supports over 1000 mobile operators, businesses, and service providers in associated industries, delivering events that drive business connections across the EU, APAC, Africa, and North America. Alongside this, they are the global administrator of the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), allocating IMEI number ranges to all mobile producers. 

Formed in 1995, the organisation is, in short, at the heart of all things mobile communications—increasingly crucial to the way we conduct business and lead our lives. 

Alongside their industry-defining events, GSMA also provides businesses with advanced research consultancy, offering the resources, data, and tools needed for organisations within the communications ecosystem to collaborate and partner on more impactful projects, driving customer satisfaction.

As a result of this, the business required an AD of sales that was prepared to hit the ground running—and understand the unique agendas, needs, and pain points of organisations throughout the telecommunications industry. 

This was a business-critical hire, poised to drive substantial growth for GSMA and its portfolio of market-leading clients through the sale of events to the US telco industry—with a raft of renowned partner organisations such as Verizon, Amazon Web Services, AT&T, T-Mobile, Telefónica, and Qualcomm—and exhibitors from some of the world’s largest businesses, from Futijsu, Worldpay, Thales, and Dell—expecting solid results.

GSMA came to Pareto with a range of locations they planned to open their US office in, from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Atlanta, Georgia. Despite having locations in mind, their roadblock was in connecting with the often-passive candidates at this incredibly senior level within the sales environment. 

As a result, the first course of action was to conduct a thorough range of research on the executive field within the locations GSMA had chosen. This included talent mapping, salary benchmarking and competitor analysis, which would help to identify not only potential candidates for the AD of sales role, but also give GSMA the ability to understand, in real-time, how they could enhance their employee value proposition, and offer the competitive salary range that would entice a senior, sales and commission-focused prospect across to the new role they were aiming to fill. 

Benchmarking was conducted for all office locations, with the organisation eventually settling on Atlanta as the ideal location based on the existing knowledge of—and research conducted by—Pareto’s specialist consultants. Our recruiters went directly to the market, aiming to understand what made the ideal candidate within this space tick. 

As a result of this, GSMA widened their candidate criteria to include not only those with experience in the telecommunications sector, but also those with experience in the events industry. Whilst telco industry experts staffed the organisation, these weren’t necessarily the best choice for a role which would be focused on the selling of events—with Pareto and GSMA agreeing that whilst it’s possible to learn the industry, it was vital that the candidate with the right attitude was hired in the first place.