Brought in fourth. Closed in the second week.
A Series D crypto exchange had the role open for a month with two incumbent agencies on it. Bridgeview was brought in fourth, and submitted the winning profile in just the 2nd week.
The Client
Our client is a Series D crypto exchange headquartered in Bangalore, one of the country's most recognised names in digital assets. With ₹2,144 crore raised across funding rounds from investors including Pantera Capital, Polychain, Bain Capital, and Coinbase Ventures, the group has grown into a diversified financial technology platform spanning CeFi, DeFi, and international operations.
With annualised group revenue of ₹1,179 crore and assets under custody exceeding ₹10,000 crore, they were at a critical inflection point, scaling fast and needing data-driven leadership to match.
Client Profile
Leading Indian Crypto Exchange
Series D · Bangalore · Confidential
Funding Raised
₹2,144 Crore
Annual Revenue
₹1,179 Cr (annualised)
Assets Under Custody
₹10,000+ Crore
Team Size
900+ Employees
Business Lines
CeFi · DeFi · International
Key Backers
Pantera · Polychain · Bain
The brief, and the five
non-negotiables inside it
The role, Head of Analytics, required someone who could both own the analytics vision for the entire group and lead a centralized team of 12-15 data professionals. The brief was as ambitious as it was specific.
Multiple internal attempts had gone nowhere. Two other agencies were engaged simultaneously. The role had been open for a month when Bridgeview entered the picture.
Rare intersection of skills. The ideal candidate needed deep technical expertise, predictive modelling, ML, statistical analysis, combined with strategic leadership and cross-functional stakeholder management. That combination is hard to find in a single person.
Crypto is a niche within a niche. Senior analytics leaders familiar with crypto product dynamics, DeFi data, and exchange-level user behaviour are a genuinely small cohort in India.
Bangalore or bust. The client required the candidate to be based in Bangalore or willing to relocate, further narrowing the pool.
Compensation ceiling. The role carried a strict budget that sat below market rate for this level of seniority, a constraint that meaningfully narrowed the field.
Team management at scale. The candidate had to have direct experience building and managing teams of 15+ people, not just technical depth, but real people leadership.
Our approach
Two incumbent agencies had already been searching for a month. Neither submitted the eventual hire. We did, in just the 2nd week. Here's what we did differently.
Intake in hours, not days
We stay close to the TA leadership of every client we work with, even when there's no active mandate, tracking hiring priorities, team shape, and evolving culture. That meant within hours of the brief, we ran a detailed intake session that went past the job description: the real scope of the role, the team the hire would inherit, the competencies the client would not compromise on, and the cultural signals that would separate a fit from a miss. For a role that had already sat open for a month, that compression was critical.
Mapping 50+ adjacent companies
We built a target universe of 50-60 Tier 1 consumer internet and D2C brands, companies where top analytics leaders were most likely to be thriving. Using our database of senior tech profiles built across hundreds of leadership searches, we cross-referenced this with LinkedIn Recruiter to prioritise candidates by tenure, team size managed, and domain relevance.
126 personalised reach-outs
We reached out to 126 carefully selected candidates. Rather than generic InMail blasts, each message referenced the candidate's specific background, trajectory, and why this role made sense for them specifically. Every piece of outreach was hand-written or tightly tailored by our search team, a discipline most agencies abandon past 20 candidates.
Four-pillar screen before any CV is sent
Every candidate went through a structured evaluation before being presented to the client: an initial profile review against a competency scorecard, a detailed screen assessing leadership approach and technical depth, and a structured behavioural interview mapping against four pillars, analytics leadership, stakeholder management, technical fluency, and cultural alignment. Only candidates who cleared all four were submitted, protecting the client from noise and ensuring every interview slot they spent was with a genuine contender.
Winning candidate in the first batch
The eventual hire was in our very first shortlist, submitted within the first fortnight of the search. From there, we acted as active intermediaries: prepping candidates before each round, facilitating tight feedback loops, and maintaining alignment on both sides. When the offer came, we managed expectations and supported a smooth negotiation, culminating in a signed offer seven weeks from brief to close.
Search Timeline
Mid July 2025
Mandate Received
Briefed by VP of TA. Immediate intake session. Search officially begins.
Late July 2025
First Shortlist Submitted
Curated first shortlist presented. The eventual hire was included.
July – September 2025
Interview Rounds
Multiple rounds across 6 weeks. Bridgeview actively coordinated, prepped candidates, and maintained alignment on both sides.
17 September 2025
Offer Signed
Offer signed after a rigorous, multi-stage selection process. Closed within the agreed budget.
The hire came from Bridgeview's first shortlist. That only happens when a firm has actually listened to the brief.
CHRO, Leading Indian Crypto Exchange · Series D
The placed leader
The candidate we placed brought nearly two decades of analytics leadership, spanning large consumer internet platforms, global streaming and e-commerce businesses, and enterprise technology, with head-of-analytics mandates at multiple household-name companies.
He wasn't on the active market. We identified him through targeted outreach based on his leadership trajectory and team size history, and opened the conversation with the specific scope of the role, not a generic pitch.
He came with a track record of building analytics functions from scratch, managing large cross-functional teams, and translating complex data ecosystems into business outcomes, precisely the combination the client needed.
What made the match exceptional wasn't just his CV. According to the CHRO, what stood out was his cultural alignment, a quality that is notoriously difficult to assess and often the reason great hires fail. He cleared it emphatically.
Within
Budget ceiling resolved
1st batch
Winning candidate included
Strongest
Culture fit, per CHRO
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