At Clausematch, we empower people to develop their careers within the organization. We recently reached out to some of our employees to share their career journey - from defining moments that helped shape their professional career to important risks they took to advance in their role. In our latest story, Freddie Frith, Head of Sales (EMEA), shares his career journey at Clausematch.
What career transition have you made at Clausematch?
I joined Clausematch as a Sales Development Representative back in 2018, following one year at Silverfin, an Index Ventures backed SaaS startup in the FinTech space. I was a top performing SDR and that’s how I managed to get a spot at Clausematch post Series A. I quickly became a strong performer at Clausematch, and given more responsibility, within a year I was closing smaller deals. In my third year I closed my first 6-figure North American banking deal and drove the go to market on new industry verticals, and my responsibilities started accelerating considerably. Since that time, my role has evolved from an SDR to a Sales Leader.
I spearheaded the growth across new geographies: Denmark, Switzerland, Benelux, Central Europe, offshore such as Guernsey and Jersey, Australia and Canada. The most notable milestone of my career as an Account Executive was building the insurance revenue stream and our insurance proposition from scratch, following the successful participation in the Lloyds Lab accelerator program. As a result, we have partnered with small Lloyds market carriers through to the largest brokers, like Chubb.
Over the last two years, as Clausematch transitioned into a mature scaleup organization, I have been leading the creation of the SMB and mid-market strategy, ensuring it’s scalable and predictable from a revenue perspective. This encompasses everything, from hiring the team, building the strategy, implementing the playbooks and having the direct influence with decision makers alongside senior leadership.
Taking a client-centric, consultative approach to sales has been a success factor in my career. Building meaningful connections, long-term partnerships with clients, rather than looking at it as just a commercial opportunity is my ethos.
What learning and development opportunities did Clausematch provide to help you advance in your career?
Being close to industry incubators, associations, and accelerators has allowed me to work closely with subject matter experts. I have contributed to expert articles, blogs and also hosted a RegTech Live podcast. I'm regularly doing key notes at RegTech events and contributing to thought leadership content. Clausematch opened the world of RegTech to me.
Working at Clausematch taught me multiple things, for instance, taking a data-driven approach to making decisions on how to serve clients and build relationships. We track data points of how our clients interact with the business cross-functionally, from sales, customer success, professional services, marketing and product. The trends in this data builds a narrative and informs us when we are doing well and when we are not, as well as what clients like and dislike.
How did Clausematch empower you to achieve your goals?
Being part of a company who tries to disrupt a traditionally antiquated process which lacks innovation is inspiring. Clausematch was willing to support accelerating career development by trusting me to go out and build different parts of the business. Now I’m in a position where I can help replicate the work amongst the team that I'm hiring.
Who at Clausematch do you look up to for inspiration or mentorship?
I can name at least two people but not limited to: Danny Gal, our CRO and COO, has been instrumental in my development as a manager and leader. And our founder Evgeny Likhoded has trusted and supported my decisions to shift our sales strategy focus.
What projects are you most proud of?
The strategy I developed to target SMB and mid-market organizations. I created a plan and presented it to the board. Then, I spent one year validating this plan and it was then taken on as a strategy. As a company, we have pivoted to this strategy going forward and are reaping the rewards.
What’s the most important risk you took and why?
It is always risky telling the business to support a new strategy. However, Clausematch commends and supports rational risk taking.
Although it was not a risk, but a common challenge, moving from a social office environment to remote working from home risked damaging the natural cadence of conversations, collaboration and cross-functional alignment enjoyed by the sales team. However, Clausematch quickly set up online workspaces, social activities and communication channels which helped with bonding and morale.
Regarding clients, we had to ensure that the sales team offered the same level of service, empathy and understanding as it did before and it maintains that philosophy now when it sells remotely. Now, under our new hybrid approach, Clausematch places a higher value on face-to-face meetings, holding them less often and for specific reasons, such as toasting new projects, celebrating milestones or treating clients.
How do you continue to grow and develop?
Attending sales leadership events, continuous reading and listening to podcasts. A favourite of mine is 20 VC. I network alot and stay close to other sales leaders for mentorship.
My favourite book is Factfulness: 10 reasons we're wrong about the world and why things are better than you think. It helped me a lot as it is about looking at things in an unbiased way.
I also follow other successful startups trying to identify the commonalities and traits that can be applied to Clausematch.
How do you keep you and your team motivated?
Building a platform that makes what is seen as a boring and unexciting part of the financial services sector exciting and fun, while also having an impact on improving the financial services system. My next big milestone is to become a Chief Revenue Officer and help companies scale in the FinTech and RegTech space. Looking to the future, I want to support further global adoption of Clausematch and continue my career development as a senior leader.
