Retail & Distribution

Great talent does not always come from the same aisle.

Retail and consumer businesses often search too narrowly, assuming the strongest candidate must come from the exact same category.

At leadership level, analytical strength, commercial judgement and the ability to understand customers, margins and operations can matter more than category familiarity.

What we see

• Talent pools are often narrower than they need to be. Strong talent can move across retail, FMCG, distribution, e-commerce and adjacent consumer businesses.
• Commercial and analytical capability gets underestimated. Senior leaders need to understand much more than sales — customers, margins, inventory, performance and trade-offs.
• Onboarding is often too light. Retail businesses are operationally complex. A new leader needs enough exposure to understand the real engine of the business, not just the org chart.

How we approach it

We define the capability the strategy requires, then map beyond the obvious talent pool. During selection, we pressure-test commercial judgement, analytical thinking and leadership capability rather than relying only on industry familiarity or interview performance. And once the hire is made, we carry what we learned during the search into the new hire's landing.

Our view: Hire for the capability the business needs, not simply the category the candidate already knows.

Selected searches

• Head of Internal Audit
• Head of HR
• Marketing Manager
• IT Manager
• Head of Retail
• Regional Manager
• HR Business Partner
• General Manager
• CFO