Consumer Goods & Retail Recruitment Services
Permanent recruitment, retained executive search, interim leadership and advisory services for consumer goods brands, manufacturers, distributors and retailers across the United States.
Executive search for consumer goods and retail leadership
C-suite, general management and senior leadership searches for consumer brands and retailers, run confidentially and assessed against your plan.
Each search is led by a consultant who works your category, mapped against the market before anyone is approached and reported back with a shortlist you can defend to your board.
About executive searchEvery way we can run your search
Most of our work is permanent recruitment and retained executive search for managerial, senior and executive roles. Where a business needs more than a single hire we also provide interim and fractional leadership for growing brands, recruitment process outsourcing for sustained hiring volume, and permanent store-leadership hiring for roll-outs and new formats.
Around the search itself we offer talent mapping and market intelligence, succession planning and compensation benchmarking, so a brief starts from evidence about who is out there and what it will take to attract them. Every engagement runs on contingent, retained or exclusive terms agreed before any approach is made. Call +1 888-202-9809 to talk through which route fits the role.
What our consumer goods recruitment services cover
Hiring in the consumer goods industry carries a particular kind of pressure. Seasonal cycles, margin compression, retailer relationships, and shifting shopper behavior mean the wrong hire in a commercial or operational role appears quickly in your numbers, and the right hire can change a trajectory. SundryHall is a specialist recruitment firm focused on consumer goods and retail, and we help brands, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers across the United States identify, attract, and hire the people who keep those businesses moving.
Our consumer goods recruitment services cover permanent recruitment, executive search, senior interim placements, and the market intelligence that supports better hiring decisions. We work on contingent, retained, and exclusive terms, and every engagement is built around one principle: a short, credible shortlist beats a long list of maybes.
Every search begins with a conversation about the commercial reality behind the role. What does the account base look like? Which retailers or channels matter most? Is this a build, a turnaround, or a succession plan? Those answers shape the brief, the target list, and the way we talk about your business to candidates who are rarely actively looking.
We recruit across the functions that drive consumer goods and retail businesses, including:
- Sales and commercial (national account management, key account teams, category management, and commercial leadership)
- Marketing and brand (brand management, shopper and trade marketing, insights, and e-commerce)
- Supply chain and operations (planning, procurement, logistics, distribution, and manufacturing leadership)
- Product and technical (product development, quality, and regulatory)
- Finance and general management (commercial finance, country and divisional leadership, and board-level appointments)
Alongside the search itself, clients use us for the context around it: realistic compensation benchmarks, competitor team structures, availability of talent in a given market, and an honest view of how a role is likely to be received. That intelligence often changes the brief before a single candidate is approached, which is usually cheaper than discovering the same thing after eight weeks of interviews.
If you are planning a hire, replacing a key commercial leader, or simply want a view of the market before you commit, we are happy to have that conversation first and decide together whether a formal search is the right next step.
We recruit across the commercial and operational spine of consumer-facing businesses. On the commercial side, that includes sales leadership, national account management, brand marketing, and category management. On the operational side, we regularly place supply chain, logistics, procurement, and manufacturing leaders, with corporate functions such as finance, human resources, and technology completing the picture.
The sub-sectors we serve reflect the breadth of the industry. Our work spans FMCG, food and beverage, beauty and personal care, and household products. We also support grocery and specialty retail, e-commerce and D2C brands, and wholesale and distribution businesses. This selection is not exhaustive, so if your niche is not mentioned here, contact us and we will tell you honestly whether we can help.
Most clients come to us for one of five things: a permanent hire, a confidential executive search, an interim leader, market intelligence, or a multi-hire campaign. Each is outlined below, and the right route often becomes clear in a single conversation.
Permanent recruitment
We manage permanent hires from role scoping through offer negotiation, sourcing qualified candidates from our sector network and screening them against your commercial reality, not simply the wording of the job description. That means testing whether a national account manager has genuinely owned a major grocery relationship, or whether a brand marketer has delivered in the channel you actually sell through.
Executive search
For senior and confidential appointments, our executive search work is discreet and research-led, mapping the market thoroughly before a single approach is made. This is the route for director and C-suite roles, for replacing an incumbent who is still in the role, and for any hire where news reaching the market early would be damaging.
Interim leadership
When a transformation, a sudden vacancy, or a demanding season calls for experienced leadership quickly, we place proven interim executives who can operate effectively from day one. Typical briefs include covering a parental leave in a commercial director seat, steadying a supply chain function mid-crisis, or leading a site through a period of change while the permanent search runs in parallel.
Talent mapping and market intelligence
We deliver talent mapping, competitor organization analysis, and salary benchmarking so you can plan hires with real data on the available talent pool. Clients use this work to pressure-test a salary band before going to market, to understand how rivals have structured a commercial team, or to build a longlist ahead of a hire that is still months away.
Multi-hire campaigns for managerial and professional roles
For expansions, new site launches, or team rebuilds, we run structured multi-hire campaigns with consistent assessment standards applied across every role. Every candidate is measured against the same criteria and the same scorecard, so the quality of the tenth hire matches the first and you can compare candidates fairly across the whole intake.
Why consumer and retail businesses choose a specialist CPG search firm
A generalist recruiter can fill a vacancy. A specialist CPG search firm understands what the vacancy actually is. We know why a category management hire for a grocery supplier differs from the same title in beauty, why a supply chain leader in D2C faces different pressures than one in wholesale, and why the account manager who thrived selling into a big-box retailer may struggle in a specialty environment.
That sector knowledge changes the work at every stage. Role specifications become sharper because we can challenge assumptions about what the hire really needs to deliver. Screening becomes more meaningful because we can probe commercial track records with informed questions, asking about joint business planning, trade spend decisions, margin recovery, and how a candidate handled a real range review rather than how they describe one. Shortlists become shorter, because we can tell the difference between a candidate who interviews well and one who will perform.
It also changes the speed of the search. Because we already map the consumer and retail market continuously, we are not starting from an empty page each time a brief lands. We know which commercial leaders have just delivered a successful national listing, which supply chain directors have carried a business through a distribution change, and which marketing talent has built brands in both scale retail and direct-to-consumer channels. That standing knowledge shortens the gap between brief and credible shortlist.
Consumer goods companies also come to us for discretion. Senior commercial moves in this industry are visible, and a careless approach can unsettle customers, competitors, and internal teams. We handle confidential searches carefully, approaching passive candidates through established relationships within our network of consumer goods recruiters, people who take the call because they know us, not because they are actively looking.
Finally, clients stay with us because the advice does not stop at the offer. We share what we are seeing on salary benchmarks, counter-offer behavior, and how competing employers are structuring packages, so hiring decisions are made with current market context rather than last year's assumptions.
How an engagement with SundryHall works
Every search follows a structured process, with depth and pace calibrated to the role. A retained executive search for a VP of supply chain looks different from a multi-hire campaign for regional sales leaders, and we will be clear with you about what each requires before any work begins. The six steps below describe the shape of a typical engagement, from the first scoping conversation through to aftercare once your new hire is in the role.
Role scoping
We meet with your stakeholders to define the role, the outcomes it must deliver, and the profile most likely to succeed in your specific environment. This stage settles the brief: the scope and reporting lines, the commercial objectives the hire owns in their first year, the must-have experience against the merely desirable, and the salary range the market will support. Getting this right early is what prevents a search from drifting later.
Market mapping and sourcing
We combine targeted headhunting, our sector database, and direct network outreach to build a candidate pool that reflects the real market. Mapping tells you who is out there (the companies and teams where the relevant people sit), not simply who happens to be applying for jobs this month. That matters most for senior and specialist roles, where the strongest candidates are rarely active on the open market and have to be approached directly and discreetly.
Screening and assessment
Each candidate is interviewed and assessed against the agreed brief, with commercial track record, leadership style, and cultural fit all examined. We test claims against evidence, probe the reasons behind each career move, and establish motivation, notice period, and genuine willingness to move before anyone reaches your desk. Candidates who do not stand up to that scrutiny do not progress, however good the résumé reads.
Shortlist presentation
You receive a focused shortlist with candid appraisals of each candidate, including any reservations we hold. We would rather present four people we can stand behind than ten who pad the numbers, and we will tell you where a candidate is strong, where they are stretching, and what you would need to manage after they join. Interview scheduling and feedback are coordinated by us so momentum is not lost between rounds.
Offer management
We manage negotiation and counter-offer risk, using current salary benchmarking insight to keep offers competitive and credible. Most offers that collapse do so because expectations on package, start date, or counter-offer were never surfaced in advance. We raise those conversations early with both sides, so that when the offer is made it is one the candidate has already decided to accept.
Placement aftercare
We stay in contact through onboarding and the early months of the placement, because a hire is only successful once it sticks. We check in with both the candidate and the hiring manager during that settling-in period, flag any issues while they are still small, and feed what we learn back into how we run your next search.
Talent acquisition support beyond the individual hire
Many of our client relationships extend well past a single vacancy. As a talent acquisition partner, we support hiring managers, human resources teams, founders, and investor-backed leadership groups with ongoing hiring strategy. In practice, that might mean benchmarking a compensation structure before a recruitment cycle opens, mapping a competitor's commercial team ahead of an expansion, advising on employer branding so your roles land better with the candidates you actually want, or simply acting as a sounding board when a team structure needs rethinking rather than refilling.
This kind of support works best when it runs continuously rather than in bursts. Because we stay close to the market in the sectors we cover, we can tell you what a role is realistically worth, how long a search is likely to take, and where the strongest people are currently sitting, before you commit to a hiring plan. That context tends to save time later, when a brief is live and decisions need to be made quickly.
We also work with candidates as long-term relationships, which is why our network stays warm. Candidates we have placed often take our call about a new opportunity, and that responsiveness is what keeps our shortlists strong. Those same people become clients, refer colleagues, and tell us honestly what is happening inside their organizations, the kind of insight that no database alone can provide.
Common questions about working with us
Below are the questions we are asked most often by hiring leaders and candidates. If your situation isn't covered here, a short conversation will usually answer it faster than anything written down.
Which roles do you recruit?
Our focus is managerial, professional, and executive-level hiring across the consumer goods industry and retail sector. We concentrate on leadership roles and specialist professional positions where sector knowledge materially improves the quality of the hire, the kinds of appointments where a shortlist built on generic screening rarely produces a strong result.
Typical briefs sit in functions such as sales and account management, marketing and brand, category management, supply chain and operations, finance, and general management. If you are unsure whether a role fits our focus, ask. We would rather tell you honestly that another specialist is a better fit than take a brief we cannot serve well.
What are your engagement terms?
We work on contingent, retained, and exclusive bases depending on the seniority and urgency of the brief. Retained and exclusive arrangements typically apply to executive search and confidential appointments, where the work involves mapping a defined market, approaching people discreetly, and managing a process over several weeks. Contingent terms suit many permanent hires where speed and market coverage matter more than a formal, structured search.
Terms are agreed in writing before any search begins, so there are no surprises later in the process.
Where do you recruit?
We recruit across the United States. Our offices are located in Atlanta, Georgia; Marlborough, Massachusetts; Parsippany, New Jersey; and Cheyenne, Wyoming, and our candidate network extends well beyond those locations.
Because consumer goods and retail talent frequently relocates for the right opportunity, we do not limit a search to a single metro area unless a client asks us to. Where a role is remote or hybrid, we say so clearly in the approach, as it materially changes who will consider the move.
How do you compare to a job board or an in-house posting?
A job board reaches active job seekers. Our searches reach the wider market, including passive candidates who are performing well elsewhere and will only move for the right approach. For senior and specialist hires, that difference in reach is usually the difference in outcome.
There is a second difference that matters just as much: filtering. A posting returns volume that someone internally has to read, screen, and manage. We deliver a short, qualified shortlist with context on each person (why they are open to a move, what they are looking for, and where the risks sit), so your interview time goes to candidates who are genuinely credible for the role.
Do you work with candidates who are exploring a move?
Professionals exploring career opportunities in consumer goods and retail are welcome to contact us directly. We treat candidate conversations with the same discretion we give clients, and a conversation with us never commits you to anything.
Your details are never sent to an employer without your permission, and we will tell you plainly if we do not think a role is right for you. Many of the people we place first spoke to us months before they were ready to move.
Start a conversation with SundryHall
If you are planning a hire in the consumer goods or retail space, the most useful next step is a straightforward conversation about the role, the timeline, and the market. We will tell you what we see, what the search will involve, and whether we are the right firm to run it. That transparency is how we aim to provide outstanding service from the first call onward.
Before the call, it helps to have a rough sense of the mandate: the scope of the position, who it reports to, the compensation range you have in mind, and the deadline you are working toward. If any of that is still unsettled, that is fine. Shaping those details is often the first and most valuable part of the work.
In that first conversation we will usually cover the following:
- The role itself (responsibilities, reporting lines, and what success looks like in the first year).
- The market (where comparable talent sits today and how competitive the search is likely to be).
- The timeline (realistic expectations for shortlists, interviews, and an accepted offer).
- The fit (an honest view on whether SundryHall is the right firm for this particular mandate).
Call us at +1 888-202-9809 or email [email protected]. You can also send us a hiring brief, and we will respond promptly.
If you are a candidate rather than a hiring organization, you are welcome to reach out through the same channels. We keep conversations with consumer goods and retail professionals confidential, whether or not there is a live search that matches your background.
Brief us on the role you need to fill
Tell us about the position, the location and the timeline. A consultant who works your sector will follow up to talk through how we would run the search.