Scaling wellness start-up, Verve, partnered with our marketing executive search firm to identify their first Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). As such a crucial hire in their growth journey, it was important they worked with the talent team who could get it right.
Following an extensive retained search of the market led by Harrison Knowles, Verve appointed an excellent marketing leader who brings proven experience scaling consumer wellness brands and strong alignment with the brand's vision.
Verve is an early-stage wellness brand founded by Oliver Cookson, the entrepreneur behind Myprotein. With a strong hero product (V80), and the upcoming launch of their new range they needed a commercially minded operator to build a scalable growth engine.
The brief was clear: identify a hands-on CMO capable of taking Verve from early traction to scale. The role demanded commercial sharpness (owning CAC, LTV, ROAS), strong executional experience (Amazon, TikTok Shop, Paid, CRM, CRO), and the ability to build a small team in a fast-moving, founder-led environment. The appointee also needed to have long-term CEO potential.
As one of the most critical hires in Verve’s growth journey to date, they needed to ensure they partnered with a firm who could deliver. That's where we came in.
We were engaged on a retained search thanks to our specialist focus on executive marketing hires in the direct-to-consumer industry and experience scaling founder-led businesses. Specialist marketing headhunter, Harrison Knowles, was retained on a search focused on senior leaders across wellness, nutrition, and consumer adjacencies. His approach included:
Throughout the process we added value by:
We successfully placed Neal Rawlinson as CMO in September 2025. Neal brings proven experience scaling consumer wellness brands and strong alignment with Oliver’s vision.
His appointment provides Verve with a marketing leader capable of:
With Neal in place, Verve now has the leadership needed to accelerate growth through Amazon, TikTok Shop, and CRM retention strategies, while laying the groundwork for future category leadership in longevity and wellness.
From the outset, working with Harrison and the 3Search team felt like a genuine partnership. Their deep market insight and swift understanding of our business needs inspired real confidence in what was a critical leadership hire at a pivotal stage of our company’s growth. They demonstrated an impressive balance of pace, precision, and respect for both us and the candidates, throughout the process. The experience was seamless and highly professional, with consistent communication around progress, timelines, and next steps. The result was an exceptional appointment delivered within our required timeframe. We look forward to partnering with them again as our journey continues.Karl Jacobie COO, ex-MD of MyProtein and Founder of ProteinWorks
Candidate Thought Count: 0
