Q&A with Doug Conely: Peach

Introduction to Peach

Peach is reinventing the way video ads get from edit to ad platform, broadcaster, social and more. Their technology unifies digital and linear advertising ensuring quality, ease of collaboration and distribution at speed: eliminating complexity, delays and costly mistakes. For 25 years, Peach has been simplifying processes for adland. By bringing together unrivalled industry expertise with innovative technology and international reach, Peach radically improves the way ads get to screens around the world.

What was your recruitment challenge?

Around 12 months ago, I was looking to hire a Senior Product Manager to change the way we worked on one of our product areas Peach – moving from a team just accepting change requests, towards a product team solving customer problems proactively and growing the product strategically. I needed a candidate who had niche domain experience and who had the right personal attributes to be able to lead that change for us.

Throughout the hiring process, it can be quite hard to quickly cut through and find the ‘real’ product people not just the client services people who accidentally have two years of product on their CV! Put that together with it being a tough job market, I decided to approach Doug at Intelligent People to help get started.

What made you approach / work with Intelligent People?

I’ve had a long history with Doug at Intelligent People, we’ve been working together since 2010. The main reason for this long-standing relationship is that I trust Doug to get the results that I need. It’s also great that we get on personally and can have a nice chat together, but ultimately, I go to Doug because he makes the process work for me. He quickly identifies what I need, understands what skills are needed to fill the gap, and the type of person that will fit the bill.

What services did Intelligent People provide?

I always find the recruitment process simple and straightforward. I explain to Doug what is required throughout the briefing process, and we have an open conversation about how to make the brief attractive, salary benchmarks, the package and benefits we can offer and the right selection process to secure talent. I let Doug do the rest, providing me a shortlist of relevant and thoughtfully selected candidates to work with. Doug will navigate the offer process for us and keeps the candidate engaged throughout their notice period, until they join us.

What was the outcome?

Hiring and managing people is difficult, but through work with Intelligent People, we’ve got a high success rate – 3 out of 4 candidates placed by Intelligent People have worked out perfectly and that’s the reason I’ll keep coming back to IP for many of my product recruitment needs.

Read other product management case studies

Product Manager placement at Novata

Product Manager placement at Pebble

Product Manager and Design recruitment at ATG

I’ve had a long history with Doug at Intelligent People, we’ve been working together since 2010. The main reason for this long-standing relationship is that I trust Doug to get the results that I need. It’s nice that we get on personally, but ultimately, I go to Doug because he makes the recruitment process work for me. He quickly identifies what I need, understands what skills are needed to fill the gap, and the type of person that is likely to fit into my teams. Read the full case study.

Doug Slate