Chief Revenue Officer Recruitment in Belgium

Archetype recruits Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) for B2B companies in Belgium that want one executive to own revenue end to end: demand generation, new business, account growth and renewals. Before we search, we check with you that a CRO is the right answer rather than a Sales Director or a Head of Sales. We have specialised in Sales, Marketing and Management roles since 1993 and work on retainer, with fees agreed before the start in a written proposal. Allow 12 weeks on average, with a six-month replacement guarantee. Tell us about your commercial organisation and you will receive our proposal within 48 to 72 hours.

Chief Revenue Officer presenting the revenue plan to the leadership team — The CRO presents the revenue plan to the board and answers for it.

What a Chief Revenue Officer does

The CRO is the member of the executive team who answers for revenue from first contact to renewal. They bring the revenue-producing teams under one authority: demand generation marketing, sales, account management, customer success and, often, sales operations. Then they arbitrate between them. Should the budget go to acquisition or retention? Which segment should be dropped? Which price should hold? The CRO presents the revenue plan to the CEO and the board, and answers for it.

A Sales Director or VP Sales owns new business. A CRO owns the whole cycle, including what happens after the contract is signed. That is why the role first appeared in recurring revenue models, where renewal weighs as much as acquisition.

Scope matrix: CRO, Sales Director, Head of Sales

The first question to settle on the first call is a simple one: what will this role actually be responsible for? This matrix shows the most common split. Titles vary between companies, so read it as a guide to compare with your own organisation chart.

Who runs what in the revenue chain?
Activity	Chief Revenue Officer	Sales Director	Head of Sales
Demand generation (marketing)	Leads	Contributes	Out of scope
New business	Leads	Leads	Runs day to day
Growth of existing accounts	Leads	Leads	Depends on the organisation
Customer success and renewals	Leads	Depends on the organisation	Out of scope
Sales operations: CRM, forecast, territories	Leads	Depends on the organisation	Uses
Pricing and commercial terms	Decides	Proposes	Applies
Revenue plan presented to the board	Owns	Contributes	Out of scope

If the role you have in mind really only covers new business and existing accounts, you are probably looking for a Sales Director. If the need is to run a sales team day to day, see our page on Head of Sales recruitment.

When a CRO is the right answer, and when it is not

A CRO earns the cost in three situations. When Sales, Marketing and Customer Success each report to a different executive and none of them owns the number. When you sell a recurring model and renewal weighs as much as acquisition. When your board expects one person to answer for the revenue plan.

It is the wrong answer when you have a single sales team of around ten people and no marketing function. A CRO would have nobody to align. The useful hire is then a Sales Manager or Sales Director, and sometimes a Sales Operations Manager to make the pipeline readable. We will tell you so on the first call, even if it makes the assignment smaller.

Our principle of transparency is one of our core values: saying what needs to be said, even when it’s uncomfortable. In practice, that means we’ll tell you if your salary range is misaligned with the market. We’ll tell you if the candidate you’re set on raises a red flag on a critical point. We’ll tell you if the training you’re asking for won’t solve the problem you’re describing. Everyone says they value transparency; few accept its relational cost. We do.
The Archetype method, since 1993

What we check in a CRO candidate

Many CROs were excellent Sales Directors. That is no guarantee. The role means leading peers from marketing and customer service, defending a plan in front of a board, and accepting a cut in the sales budget to fund retention. So we assess:

the ability to arbitrate between acquisition, expansion and retention, with figures from their own track record;
fluency in the revenue metrics of your model, recurring or not;
influence over a CEO and a board;
leadership of managers who do not come from sales.

The in-depth interview goes back over those trade-offs, and the KOAN personality test, which we have used for thirty years, completes the picture. KOAN shows what drives a candidate, what blocks them and how they react under pressure. For your finalists, a full pre-hire assessment, with role-plays, a case study on your revenue plan and a spoken debrief, can be added to the search.

How the search runs

The first call is used to take the brief and challenge the role. Within 48 to 72 hours you receive our proposal. Between the two calls we prepare a needs summary, a scorecard for the role and a sourcing strategy. On average the assignment is signed 12 days after first contact. It then follows five steps: in-depth briefing, a sourcing strategy specific to the assignment, structured screening, a detailed presentation of finalists with scorecard, interview transcripts and a validated job description, and follow-up before, during and after the hire.

For exclusive assignments we also produce employer branding content for the role: a dedicated landing page, visuals and social posts. A CRO in post does not answer job ads. They answer a well-presented project.

Fees, timeline and guarantee

Our fees are agreed before the start, in the written proposal you sign. They depend on the level of the role, the languages required, the technical complexity and the difficulty of the assignment. We only work on retainer, never on success fee, which lets us see every assignment through however long it takes. Allow 12 weeks on average between signing the assignment and the candidate signing, before their notice period. We follow onboarding through the first three months, and a six-month replacement guarantee applies.

Hiring a CRO in Belgium and beyond

We cover Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg directly and recruit in French, Dutch and English. For searches in France we work with our partner Granit RH, in Germany with Konsultwerk, and further afield through the INHUNT international network. Archetype is a member of Federgon, holds the Quality Label Recruitment Search Selection, and won Talent Business Innovation of the Year 2025.

About Archetype

Archetype is a Belgian family business founded in 1993 by Marc Diamant and now co-managed with Davy Diamant and Steve Diamant. A member of Federgon, it won Talent Business Innovation of the Year 2025 for its ethical and structured use of AI.

Frequently asked questions about CRO recruitment

What is a Chief Revenue Officer?

The executive who answers for all of a company’s revenue. A CRO leads demand generation marketing, sales, account growth and customer success, and decides how budget is split between those teams.

What is the difference between a CRO and a VP Sales?

A VP Sales owns new business. A CRO owns the whole revenue cycle: demand generation, new business, expansion and retention, plus the arbitration between them.

Is the CRO part of the executive committee?

Yes. It is a C-level role: the CRO usually reports to the CEO and presents the revenue plan to the board.

Do you search for CROs outside Belgium?

We cover the Benelux directly. For France and Germany we work with our partners Granit RH and Konsultwerk, and with the INHUNT network for other countries.

How much does a CRO search cost and how long does it take?

Fees are agreed before the start in a written proposal, sent within 48 to 72 hours of the first call, on retainer and without success fee. The search takes 12 weeks on average until the candidate signs, with a six-month replacement guarantee.