How Oakstone helped Element build a Commercial Team for the Next Stage of Growth

20 Sept

Oakstone International has supported Element through multiple stages of its commercial growth, delivering seven successful hires across the UK, France and Germany in Enterprise Sales, Customer Success, Account Management and Revenue Operations. Drawing on specialist SaaS, open-source technology and go-to-market recruitment expertise, Oakstone identified candidates capable of succeeding within Element’s highly technical, early-stage environment while supporting its transition towards a more structured, recurring-revenue commercial model. The long-term partnership demonstrates how specialist technology recruitment can help growing software companies build high-performing GTM teams around complex and highly specific hiring requirements.

About Element

Element is a new type of communications platform. It combines consumer messaging apps, collaboration tools and video conferencing to replace email, address shadow IT and improve security. Element offers sovereign, secure and interoperable communications, all based on the Matrix open standard.

Element provides services for custom development, prioritised roadmap development, support contracts and commercial products for Matrix.

Element was founded in 2017 by the creators of Matrix and the FOSS Synapse homeserver, Element Server Suite is a professionalised backend that delivers outstanding performance. It includes enterprise-grade features such as powerful admin control, advanced identification and access management, auditing and compliance.

Element provides organisations with their own solution in their own infrastructure so any information and messages stays 100% secure and users retain all ownership and control over their data.

Search Background

Oakstone International’s relationship with Element began several years ago, when we supported the business with approximately three hires. Those appointments established a strong foundation for the partnership: one remains with Element and has been a top-performing salesperson for several years, while the other hires remained with the company for approximately three to four years.

Several years later, the relationship was re-established following the appointment of a new VP of Sales. Element was entering a period of commercial transformation, looking to shift its revenue mix toward more recurring, SaaS-like ARR and build a more structured, repeatable commercial model to support future scale.

As the new commercial structure took shape, Element required support across several different areas. Oakstone has since helped the business make seven hires across Enterprise Sales, Customer Success/Account Management, and Revenue Operations. Each search presented a different challenge, but all required candidates who could operate effectively in Element’s specialist, technical, early-stage environment.

Original Requirements

The initial requirement within this latest phase of the partnership was an Enterprise Account Executive. Element wanted a strong new-business salesperson with experience selling open-source technology and the mentality required to succeed within a startup environment. Exposure to the public sector was also considered beneficial given Element’s customer base.

As Element's commercial organisation developed, further requirements emerged. Historically, its salespeople handled a wide range of activities, including new business, account management, renewals, and services, while Professional Services focused primarily on technical delivery. Element therefore wanted clearer ownership across the customer lifecycle and less pressure on its sales organisation.

This resulted in the creation of two hybrid Customer Success/Account Management positions. The hires needed enough technical and Customer Success experience to understand onboarding, adoption and delivery, while also being commercially driven by retention, renewals and NRR. One position required English-speaking coverage, while another required German language capabilities; ultimately, Element appointed two German-speaking candidates in Germany, one bringing strong international experience and the other significant DACH market knowledge.

The final area of support discussed in the project was Revenue Operations. Element needed someone senior and commercial enough to act as a strategic partner to the VP of Sales, but hands-on enough to work directly within Salesforce, improve data, build workflows and establish the operational infrastructure required for scale. Crucially, they wanted someone who had previously built Revenue Operations within a small, early-stage technology company.

Why was Oakstone the best option?

Oakstone had already built a trusting recruiter relationship with Element before supporting their next stage of growth.

Our experience recruiting across specialist software markets was equally important. During early conversations, Element specifically questioned whether Oakstone understood open-source and Open Core technologies. Our ability to demonstrate experience in these markets, alongside our broader SaaS and technology recruitment expertise, meant we could understand the nuances behind the requirements rather than treating them as conventional sales, Customer Success, or Revenue Operations searches.

Challenges

The common challenge across Element’s searches was specificity. The company was looking for candidates with combinations of experience that were relatively uncommon in the wider market.

For the Customer Success/Account Management appointments, Element needed candidates who could bridge technical Customer Success and commercial account management. They needed to understand delivery and onboarding while being motivated by adoption, retention, renewals and ultimately identifying expansion opportunities and finding candidates who had genuinely operated across both sides of that relationship significantly reduced the available talent pool.

The Revenue Operations requirement was similarly challenging. Element wanted startup experience and strong Salesforce expertise, yet many smaller technology businesses operate HubSpot. Professionals with extensive Salesforce experience, meanwhile, are often found within larger organisations where dedicated administrators and developers manage much of the hands-on configuration. Element needed someone who could combine strategy, commercial thinking and technical execution without relying on a large supporting infrastructure.

That search faced an additional complication when an initial preferred candidate progressed towards joining but ultimately accepted another opportunity. Rather than lowering the requirements to replace them quickly, Element and Oakstone continued with the tightly defined search.

Oakstone’s Solution

Rather than approaching each vacancy as an isolated recruitment project, Oakstone developed its understanding of Element’s environment, commercial strategy and culture across the partnership.

For highly specific searches, we worked closely with the hiring team. This was particularly evident during the Revenue Operations project, where an initial group of candidates helped establish which elements of an already narrow specification mattered most to the VP of Sales. From there, Oakstone tightened the search and introduced increasingly well-aligned candidates, rather than widening the market to generate volume.

The same principle applied across the wider partnership: understanding the detail behind each position was critical. Whether identifying an open-source enterprise seller, commercially minded Customer Success professionals or a hands-on Revenue Operations leader, Oakstone focused on candidates capable of succeeding within the realities of a specialist, growing technology company rather than qualifying purely against job titles.

Communication was also central to delivery. Where searches encountered candidate withdrawals, holidays or complex timelines, Oakstone maintained engagement between Element and candidates while continuing to develop alternative options in the market.

Results

Oakstone has supported Element with seven successful hires across the UK, France and Germany, helping the company strengthen several important areas of its developing commercial organisation.

Combined with the successful hires made during the original partnership several years earlier, the relationship shows how long-term client knowledge can become increasingly valuable as the business evolves. Rather than simply filling vacancies, Oakstone has supported Element as its hiring needs have shifted across Enterprise Sales, Customer Success/Account Management, and Revenue Operations, while maintaining the specialist experience and cultural alignment required for people to succeed in the organisation.

GTM SaaS Recruitment

I’m Hiring

Are you looking to grow your business with exceptional talent? Join the SaaS and AI companies building their teams with us.

I’m Jobseeking

As a SaaS client-driven firm, we work exclusively for clients to find people with a specific set of skills and experience.

However, if you would like to submit your CV/ resume, it will be passed on to our divisional directors, and we will consider you for future roles that are appropriate to your background and goals.

Element

Oakstone International

Oakstone International is a SaaS and AI specialist executive search firm.