poa! internet is a Kenyan based Internet Service Provider at the forefront of providing connectivity into underserved communities throughout Africa. Having grown rapidly and expanded across Kenya in 2023, in part driven by previous placements Millar Cameron made, poa!'s priority was cementing the Kenyan leadership team by hiring a Managing Director to oversee the company's core market as the founding team look to international expansion in 2024.
As a company growing rapidly against the backdrop of a mature and consolidated telco industry, poa! is a unique business in Kenya. Desiring a Kenyan leader, poa!'s circumstance greatly reduced the possibility of targeting directly comparable companies in market. We were therefore faced with a trade-off between industry expertise and successful experience operating in a high growth scale-up environment.
The Millar Cameron team not only identified exceptional candidates from a range of (often unique) backgrounds, but were also able to pre-empt the strengths and concerns we would see in each candidate, and act as a thought partner throughout the decision making process.
Chris Rhodes, poa! internet
Working with the founding team, and complemented by further opinions gathered from leaders across the business, we extracted the fundamentals of poa!'s business model, and systematically assessed other high growth industries/companies where individuals are most likely to possess intersectional and transferable skillsets.
Concurrently, we also shortlisted candidates from mature telco businesses that displayed potential to thrive in high growth companies, either via their prior experience, or via our in-depth interview process, character assessment, and referencing process.
The poa! team were ultimately able to make decisions with the confidence that all search avenues had been effectively explored and assessed.
poa! were ultimately able to secure a Kenyan candidate with: