Chief Growth Officer - Consumer Goods Manufacturer

Chief Growth Officer - Consumer Goods Manufacturer

Our client is a privately owned, rapidly growing, best-in-class manufacturer and service provider of fast moving consumer packaged goods. Promoting cross-functional collaboration, customer communication & excellence in service, flexibility & adaptability, and a 3x-growth plan, we seek a strategic Chief Growth Officer to lead our client’s commercial and revenue generating functions. The CGO is a newly created position and will have the ability to build the entire commercial organization to include sales, customer management, business development, and marketing functions for our client.

Our client has a strong track record of profitability and superior client retention while generating revenues of ~$300M annually with net sales growth at ~15% CAGR and an excellent EBITDA margin. The Chief Growth Officer is expected to play an instrumental role in guiding the PE-owned organization toward continued success and a 3x+ growth objective in the next five years through the combined inorganic and organic growth initiatives.

The objective of the Chief Growth Officer is to serve as a trusted partner to the Chief Executive Officer to effectively assess, continuously evaluate, plan and execute against the company’s aggressive growth objectives across the multi-site CPG manufacturer. He/she is expected to ensure the overall effectiveness and growth of the company’s existing customer base, and expanding the company’s sales through new customers and leveraging innovation pipelines.

Position:                               Chief Growth Officer (Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Growth and Revenue Generation)

Reports to:                           Chief Executive Officer

Location:                              Greater Chicago Area

Required:                             CGO, CCO, S/VP of Product Development, S/VP of Sales, or allied experience in a FMCG manufacturer. Must have demonstrated experience driving exponential growth and revenue generation in a rapid growth and lean environment. Must have experience driving innovation and fueling revenue generation.

Preferred:                            Private Equity experience and demonstrated ability to create a robust commercial organization from the ground up. Experience in a technical manufacturing-, packaging-, or contract manufacturing-environment.

 

Position Purpose:

The Chief Commercial Officer will be a key contributor to corporate strategies supporting robust growth objectives over the next several years. This role will hold responsibility for developing and delivering the sales and business development strategy to drive nationwide business growth and market share.

 

The appropriate candidate will serve as an influential leader and strategic business partner for the previously family-owned company, which is now under the guidance of a top-flight PE firm with an exceptional track record with mid-market companies. He/she will develop the newly created Center of Excellence from the ground up. The CGO is joining an organization with incredible CAGR and a strong customer base. In order to meet the aggressive sales objectives, he/she will be tasked with taking the commercial strategy from reactive to innovative and proactive.

The CGO must possess the ability to serve as a hands-on, and initially as an individual contributor, to build his/her team towards continued excellence. He she must also collaborate exceptionally well in a small, dedicated, hand-on, cross-functional leadership team focused on results, accountability and team-development. The incumbent will be expected to adopt a fast-growth mindset, and building a culture of one team pursuing one dream.

He/she must have experience in a high-SKU/high-volume CPG environment and customer facing to ensure the customer service/sales, supply, manufacturing and technical organizations continue to operate as valued business partners. Financial and ERP/system competencies are required to measure, communicate & drive results, and to improve information flow internally & externally. The CGO will serve as an inspirational & influential leader; infusing the organization with new thinking, adaptability, and improved ways of operating, while providing a sustainable & competitive advantage for the organization.

Job Description & Responsibilities Include:

Leadership

·         Deliver strategic leadership for defining the commercial path to growth and profitability of the company and the establishment of an effective growth process and infrastructure. Develop collaborative working relationships throughout the manufacturing organization in pursuit of the of the company’s overall business goals, uniting company capabilities with the needs and wants of customers.

·         Develop a team, from the ground up, dedicated to growth and revenue generation, ensuring superior customer service objective are met and go to market strategies are defined and followed.

·         Serve as the face of the business to the customer and marketplace, overseeing the company’s product and service offerings, making sure all functions of the organization are aligned to meet the strategic commercial objectives.

·         Develop long-term plans and budgets for the department and its activities, monitor progress, assure adherence and evaluate performance. Ensure systems and procedures necessary to the smooth operation of the department.

·         Maintain a climate that attracts, retains and motivates top quality personnel. Recruit, train, appraise, supervise, support, develop, promote and guide qualified personnel.

·         Cultivate a culture of focused hard work, collaboration, accountability and results.

 

Product Development

·         Partner with the Innovation and R&D teams, as well as external customers to fuel innovation and NPD as a revenue generator.

·         Create solutions to address customers’ needs and wants, often with little to no precedent, requiring comprehensive and original concepts and approaches.

·         Manages the ideation, design, development and implementation of new products while identifying opportunities to test proven and new methods, anticipating barriers to adoption and creating a cost-effective roadmap to bring the products/methods to market.

·         Lead new product development/commercialization efforts.

·         Engage existing and prospective clients in way that fosters a deep understand their pain points, and leverage that knowledge through developing product roadmaps and innovative solutions.

·         Collaborate closely with the research & development team to ensure alignment between requirements, capabilities and NPD decisions.

·         Assess resource capacity & anticipate future needs to drive product innovation, and execute product improvement & productivity initiatives, in close collaboration with the R&D/innovation center.

 

Marketing & Business Development

·         Develop comprehensive customer segmentation strategy and provide leadership for enterprise-wide business development opportunities.

·         Originate, execute and manage business development opportunities that drive revenue growth.

·         Lead development of the company marketing strategy with an emphasis on achieving market penetration and sales growth with particular attention on cost-effective customer acquisition and market demand generation.

·         Develop annual marketing plans per region and per market verticals.

·         B2B Marketing, Industry Engagements & Social Marketing

 

Sales

·         Develop and implement the company sales strategy across key market segments to ensure that the company identifies and optimizes a clear path to aggressive growth.

·         Assess, build and manage an array of necessary channels capable of delivering on the company growth objectives.

·         Responsible for the full cycle of sales and business development from a planning, execution, management and control perspective.

·         Control the achievement of KPIs and business growth.

·         Accountable for account management and customer interface, making sure that all functions of the organization are aligned to meet its strategic commercial objectives.

·         Manage sales pipeline to ensure accurate and adequate lead inflow to reach targeted sales objectives.

·         Build, manage and develop sales team through robust people development and performance accountability.

Education/Requirements Include:

·         Experienced at representing the commercial function at the senior leadership committee, as well as being an active contributor.

·         At least 15 years of experience in an overall commercial/business function having held executive roles in recognized innovative organizations.

·         Experience at working in a “performance based” environment and fostering it within the team.

·         Technical Aptitude – Ability to comprehend complex technical topics and specialized information.

·         Working Under Pressure – Ability to deliver against set objectives while operating on some occasions in stressful situations.

·         Agility – Ability to deal with shifting priorities and issues inherent to a fast-growing private organization.

·         Demonstrated skills, knowledge and experience in the design and execution of business plans and strategies.

·         Experience in dealing with issues on an international basis: understanding of the North American and international landscape.

·         Interpersonal Communications - Demonstrated skills in both written and oral presentations.

·         People Management - Ability to build, manage and develop high performance sales organization.

·         Strong creative, strategic, analytical, organizational and personal negotiation skills.

·         Capacity to conceptualize as well as operationalize commercial strategies.

·         Ability to efficiently interact with board members. Executive gravitas and presence.

·         Experienced at managing diverse and geographically remote teams.

 

If you or anyone you know are qualified and meet the requirements outlined in this announcement, please send your resume to apply@huntsearch.com for consideration.

Please Note: this is intended to provide a brief overview of the position and is being shared with numerous potentially qualified individuals and organization leaders within our network.

We receive hundreds of referrals and inquiries daily from multiple sources. Regretfully, we are unable to respond to every individual. Please know we will give careful consideration to all email inquiries.

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