Executive Search Success Story: Recruiting a CMO to Drive National Expansion for a CPG Company

How JRG Partners ran a confidential search for a Chief Marketing Officer at a regional CPG company scaling its food and beverage brands nationally.

The Challenge

A rapidly growing CPG company had achieved strong regional success with its portfolio of food and beverage brands but faced challenges scaling nationally. It needed a marketing leader to build integrated, omnichannel capabilities. Leadership identified several pressures:

• Declining marketing ROI across digital and traditional channels
• Limited brand awareness outside core markets
• Increasing competition from larger national brands
• A need for stronger customer-acquisition strategies
• A lack of integrated omnichannel marketing capabilities
• Succession concerns within marketing leadership

The board set out to recruit a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) — a leader spanning brand, omnichannel marketing, and customer acquisition. It needed a partner with deep CPG marketing search expertise.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

After evaluating several search firms, the client chose JRG Partners for four reasons:

Deep CPG Marketing Specialization

Our dedicated practices span CPG marketing, brand, omnichannel, and customer-acquisition leadership.

Real Access to Passive Talent

Many of the strongest CPG marketing leaders are not actively looking. We drew on long-standing relationships and proprietary market intelligence to reach leaders invisible through conventional channels.

Confidential Search Execution

With national expansion at stake, we ran a discreet process that protected continuity and confidence.

Nationwide Reach

The search targeted leaders from CPG, retail, food and beverage, and e-commerce organizations.

The Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Leadership Assessment

We worked directly with the CEO, board, and executive team to map organizational gaps, succession risks, growth objectives, and the competencies the business would need as it scaled. Profiles were built against the company’s long-term strategy rather than legacy job descriptions.

Phase 2 — Market Mapping

Our market map spanned consumer packaged goods companies, retail organizations, food and beverage brands, e-commerce businesses, and consumer technology firms.

Phase 3 — Engagement

Our consultants discreetly engaged marketing leaders with proven records in national brand expansion. Only candidates with measurable impact advanced.

Phase 4 — Assessment & Selection

Each finalist went through extensive evaluation covering strategic and functional capability, leadership and team-building, cultural alignment, and long-term retention.