Building Engineering Leadership to Scale Platform Performance and Innovation
December 2025 – A rapidly growing technology company needed a senior engineering leader to guide the organization through its next stage of growth. The role required someone capable of scaling the engineering organization while strengthening the company’s core platform to improve customer retention and performance.
The position demanded a rare combination of skills. The company needed a leader who could:
- Scale and lead a distributed engineering organization
- Optimize and modernize the company’s core platform
- Drive efficiency, productivity, and collaboration across engineering teams
- Balance strategic vision with operational execution
- Navigate regulatory requirements within a structured environment
- Leverage AI to improve engineering performance and efficiency
The company’s focus was on finding a leader with both deep technical credibility and strong organizational leadership experience to perpetuate long-term success.
Working with the client’s leadership team, we defined the unique blend of leadership, technical depth, and cultural alignment required for the role. Our search focused on identifying candidates with proven success leading large-scale engineering teams, experience modernizing platforms and implementing cloud infrastructure, and a strong track record of improving team performance, retention, and culture.
Through this targeted search process, we prioritized leaders who could balance strategic vision with a hands-on operational understanding of engineering organizations and found Suzy ElFishawy. Her background as an accomplished technology executive with extensive experience in software innovation and organizational transformation made her a fit for the client’s needs. Her ability to combine strategic thinking, operational discipline, and people-focused leadership positions her well to help guide the organization through its next phase of growth.
This executive search was led by Harrison Hines, Partner, Consultant, Insurance practice.
About Smith & Wilkinson
With deep-rooted industry experience and a proven track record in hiring top talent, our Insurance Practice understands the challenges you face. From evolving expectations around flexibility and compensation to broader struggles with an aging workforce, digital skill gaps, and talent attraction in a rapidly changing market, we bring a sophisticated understanding of talent dynamics and compensation trends that empower our clients to make informed decisions and drive performance and growth.
Through our extensive network, we offer broad-ranging capabilities to primary carriers, reinsurers, brokers, consulting firms, and the Insurtech community, including startups, VCs, and carrier venture arms. This broad reach allows us to support organizations across traditional and emerging segments of the industry.
Our search assignments encompass nearly all seniority levels and functional areas of the insurance ecosystem, offering our clients and candidates maximum visibility into the talent market.
Looking for talent in today’s ever-changing market? Talk with our Insurance Team to secure top talent for your strategic needs.