{"id":194768,"date":"2025-08-27T09:54:41","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T09:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/?p=194768"},"modified":"2025-08-27T09:55:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T09:55:06","slug":"ai-hiring-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/ai-hiring-case-study\/","title":{"rendered":"From Zero to AI: How One Investment Firm Built a World-Class Team in 18 Days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A global investment advisor managing over <\/span><b>$268 billion<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> across real estate, equity, and credit needed to build their AI function from the ground up.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No team. No roadmap. Just a mandate to lead the charge into intelligent automation, better risk modelling, and scalable innovation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They came to Harnham with a clear brief: find senior AI leaders who could build the plan <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> deliver it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here\u2019s what happened and what your business can take from it.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Brief<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Objective:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Make two senior AI hires from scratch<\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Timeline:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Urgent.<\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Context:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> No existing AI infrastructure or internal team<\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Requirement:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Deep AI\/ML expertise and the credibility to engage at C-suite level<\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Result<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Within just 18 working days, we took the brief, identified top talent, and made two high-impact placements, delivering exactly what the client needed without wasting time or overwhelming their internal team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The roles:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Director of AI Strategy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 Defined the AI roadmap, budgeted initiatives, aligned internal stakeholders, and evaluated vendors.<\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Director of AI Engineering<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 Built the architecture and models to bring that roadmap to life, from pipelines to deployment.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These were <\/span><b>$400k+ hires based in New York<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, shaping the client\u2019s internal capabilities and the digital transformation of their portfolio companies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-194770\" src=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-27-at-10.42.05-300x235.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-27-at-10.42.05-300x235.png 300w, https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-27-at-10.42.05.png 732w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Changed<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These hires laid the groundwork for real change. With leadership in place, the client could start applying AI where it mattered: automating manual processes, improving how risk is modelled, and identifying new ways to support their portfolio companies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Midway through the process, the brief evolved. One role became two. We adapted quickly, and the result is a structure where strategy and delivery are clearly defined; with one leader now managing the other.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s a setup designed not just to scale, but to last.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3 Lessons for AI Hiring Leaders<\/span><\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li><b> Start with leadership<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Engineers alone can\u2019t set vision, structure governance, or align the board.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b> Match your sector<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This client operates in private equity, which means they couldn\u2019t rely on generic AI talent. They needed leaders who understood financial services, regulatory requirements, and how to drive long-term value across a portfolio.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b> Hire for impact<\/b><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We didn\u2019t flood them with profiles. We delivered 14 <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">targeted<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> CVs and filled both roles in under 4 weeks.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Bigger Picture<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You\u2019re not alone if you haven\u2019t got it all figured out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Harnham\u2019s internal research, 61% of professionals already use AI in their roles but just 37% of companies have a policy in place. (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Source: Harnham AI Report \u2013 April 2025<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s a big risk especially in regulated industries like finance. The good news? The right hire can change that.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want the full story?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Harnham-Case-Study-New-York-ANON-1.pdf\">Download the case study<\/a><\/strong> and discover how Harnham delivered senior AI leadership in under three weeks and what your business can learn from it.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hiring for AI? Let\u2019s Make It Simple<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/ai-hiring-how-to-guide\/\"><b>Download our AI Hiring Guide<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 a practical resource to help you identify which roles to hire and when.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Or <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/contact-page\/\"><b>book a consultation<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with an AI recruitment expert who understands your industry.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A global investment advisor managing over $268 billion across real estate, equity, and credit needed to build their AI function from the ground up. No team. No roadmap. Just a mandate to lead the charge into intelligent automation, better risk modelling, and scalable innovation. They came to Harnham with a clear brief: find senior AI&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":617,"featured_media":194771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[397,395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artifical-intelligence","category-hiring-for-data"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>From Zero to AI: How One Investment Firm Built a World-Class Team in 18 Days - Harnham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.harnham.com\/ai-hiring-case-study\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Zero to AI: How One Investment Firm Built a World-Class Team in 18 Days - Harnham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A global investment advisor managing over $268 billion across real estate, equity, and credit needed to build their AI function from the ground up. 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