In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Patty DuChene, SVP of Marketing and Growth at Sendoso, about her systematic approach to inheriting and rebuilding teams post-acquisition. Drawing from her experience scaling from first sales hire at bootstrapped Wrike to leading teams through high-growth trajectories, Patty shares her 45-day team diagnostic framework, her contrarian stance against case studies, and why she deliberately targets hospitality veterans and returning parents for revenue roles.

Topics discussed:

• The JD forensics methodology for new leaders—systematically auditing every team member’s original job description against their actual time allocation through self-assessment, revealing scope creep patterns where critical functions (like demand gen) were consuming 40% instead of planned 10% of bandwidth.
• Why deliberately posting senior roles publicly functions as a behavioral screen for leaders who retain entrepreneurial hunger—specifically filtering for executives willing to navigate competitive application processes rather than waiting for recruiters to approach them passively.
• The acquisition integration playbook of cataloging competitor intimidation factors first—identifying specific capabilities that created competitive anxiety, then reverse-engineering those strengths into role definitions and team gaps for the combined entity.
• Google’s empirical finding that three 45-minute interviews predict role fit regardless of seniority level, making organizations requiring 6+ interviews or extensive case studies symptomatic of executive indecision rather than thoroughness.
• Non-traditional talent arbitrage strategies targeting hospitality professionals (bartenders managing 2am crowd control translate directly to cold-calling resilience) and returning parents (daily EQ testing with children builds exceptional people leadership capabilities that surface in management roles).
• Two behavioral interview questions that bypass resume screening: Asking “What are you most proud of?” without clarification to assess self-direction versus approval-seeking, and “What’s the last thing you taught someone?” to evaluate knowledge transfer capabilities essential for cross-functional influence.
• The strategic onboarding framework of pre-structured cross-functional stakeholder meetings with specific agendas, enabling new hires to understand each leader’s decision-making triggers and craft compelling change narratives from day one.
• The 45-day confidence litmus test for senior hires—executives who haven’t begun making autonomous decisions by this milestone typically indicate fundamental issues with executive presence that compound over time, requiring immediate intervention or replacement.

ABOUT YOUR HOST: 

Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. 

Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com

Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search