Aetna Marketing Technology Executive Search | Case Study

Aetna Marketing Technology Executive Search Case Study

Helping Aetna Find the Marketing Technology Leader It Truly Needed

Aetna, now part of CVS Health, is one of the largest healthcare companies in the United States. The organization provides medical, dental, pharmacy and behavioral health coverage, along with Medicare and Medicaid plans, to millions of individuals, employers and government organizations.

When Aetna needed to strengthen its marketing technology leadership, the search was about much more than filling an open position.

MarketSearch worked directly with Aetna’s Chief Marketing Officer and head of talent acquisition to look at the current organization, identify the gaps and understand exactly what the business needed from this hire.

Together, we built the role from the ground up.

The Challenge

Aetna operated across a massive and highly complex enterprise footprint. Its marketing organization needed to reach consumers across multiple channels while capturing, organizing and using an enormous amount of marketing and customer data.

The challenge wasn’t simply finding someone who understood marketing technology.

Aetna needed a leader who could look across the entire marketing organization, understand how the different platforms and teams worked together and build a more connected marketing technology operation.

The right person needed to be strategic enough to set the vision, technical enough to understand the infrastructure and commercially minded enough to connect marketing technology investments to better customer experiences and stronger business performance.

That combination is difficult to find.

The Search Requirements

Before beginning the search, we worked closely with Aetna’s CMO and talent acquisition leadership to determine what success in the role should actually look like.

We jointly reviewed the existing organization, identified capability gaps and discussed the company’s long-term marketing goals. From there, we helped develop a job description based on what Aetna truly needed—not simply what had existed before.

The ideal candidate needed experience:

• Leading marketing technology within a large, complex organization
• Evaluating and modernizing enterprise marketing platforms
• Connecting marketing, data, analytics and technology teams
• Capturing and using significant amounts of consumer data
• Improving the way marketing systems communicate with one another
• Building scalable processes across multiple business units
• Turning marketing technology into measurable business value
• Developing teams and influencing senior stakeholders across the organization

This person also needed to understand how to reach consumers within a highly regulated healthcare environment.

It was a very specific search specification—and that is exactly where MarketSearch delivers.

Why the Talent Pool Was Difficult

There are plenty of executives who understand marketing. There are also plenty of people who understand technology.

Finding someone who can genuinely lead both is much harder.

Many marketing technology candidates lean too heavily in one direction. Some are highly technical but have not owned the broader marketing vision. Others are strong digital marketers but have never evaluated, integrated or scaled technology across a company as large and complex as Aetna.

The strongest candidates also needed experience solving challenges such as:

• Legacy marketing systems that did not communicate effectively
• Disconnected marketing, analytics, operations and technology teams
• Large volumes of consumer and campaign data
• Inconsistent attribution and measurement
• Complex enterprise decision-making
• The need to modernize technology without disrupting the business

Aetna did not need someone who could simply manage the existing stack. It needed a leader who could see what the marketing technology organization should become and then build it.

That narrowed the talent pool considerably.

The MarketSearch Process

We started by listening.

Our first job was to understand the organization, the gaps and the business goals behind the hire. Working directly with Aetna’s CMO and talent acquisition leader gave us the insight needed to define the role correctly before approaching the market.

From there, we mapped the candidate pool across large consumer-facing organizations, healthcare companies and other complex enterprises with sophisticated marketing technology environments.

We looked beyond titles.

A candidate could be called a head of marketing technology, digital marketing leader, marketing operations executive or another variation entirely. What mattered was whether the person had successfully connected platforms, people, data and marketing strategy at scale.

Our conversations focused on what each candidate had actually built:

• Which platforms had they evaluated or implemented?
• How had they connected previously siloed teams?
• How did they improve the use of customer and marketing data?
• What did they automate?
• How did they measure marketing performance?
• How did their work affect growth, efficiency or the customer experience?
• Could they lead change inside a large, highly complex organization?

That process allowed us to move past surface-level qualifications and identify the candidates who could truly do the job.

The Placement

MarketSearch successfully placed a transformational marketing technology leader with Aetna.

She brought the right combination of enterprise experience, marketing knowledge, technical depth and leadership ability. She understood how to work within a large organizational footprint and how to turn disconnected marketing capabilities into a more coordinated operation.

Just as importantly, she knew how to build.

After joining Aetna, she began strengthening the marketing technology function, connecting platforms and teams and creating the foundation for a more modern, data-driven marketing organization.

Time to Placement

MarketSearch completed the placement in [INSERT EXACT NUMBER OF DAYS OR WEEKS] from the official launch of the search.

The search moved efficiently because the work had been done upfront. We had alignment around the role, the candidate profile and the business outcomes Aetna expected this leader to deliver.

The Business Result

The placement became much more than a successful executive hire.

The new leader built the marketing technology machine Aetna needed and earned outstanding feedback from the client. Her impact and continued success led to further growth and advancement within the organization.

Aetna also continued working with MarketSearch to help build out her team.

That gave us a front-row seat as the leader we placed developed the function, strengthened its capabilities and earned rave reviews from the people who had trusted us with the search.

For an executive search firm, that is the real measure of success.

It is not just making the placement. It is watching that person succeed, build a stronger organization and become even more valuable to the company over time.

A proud moment for MarketSearch—and exactly the kind of result we work toward with every executive search.

Need a Senior Marketing Technology Leader?

The more specific the marketing search becomes, the smaller and harder-to-reach the talent pool gets.

That is where MarketSearch delivers.

We help CMOs, CEOs, talent leaders and private equity firms recruit senior marketing executives who can modernize capabilities, build stronger teams and turn marketing investment into measurable business value.

If you need a head of marketing technology, digital marketing executive, marketing operations leader, CMO or another highly specialized marketing leader, let’s talk.

Contact MarketSearch to begin a retained marketing executive search.