Consumer firms hiring again for leadership roles

Leadership hiring has surged in consumer companies after a gap of at least 15 months, with about a dozen top searches presently on, industry executives said. They attributed the trend to a combination of factors including unicorns and private equity-led firms scouting for talent from fast-moving consumer goods companies, companies pushing growth with the pandemic ebbing, marketing budgets being diverted to hiring, and Indian talent transitioning to global roles leaving many top positions vacant.Industry executives said Swiggy, Nykaa, Mamaearth, Flipkart, Upstox and Cars24 are among the companies scouting for CXOs and leadership roles across various teams, while traditional ones like Reckitt, Hershey, Godrej Consumer and Tata Consumer have named new leadership roles in the April-June quarter.“There are a dozen leadership searches for consumer companies in the pipeline in the next six months, across FMCG, durables, digital/ ecommerce and retail companies which are looking at newer leadership options more aggressively,” said Ashutosh Khanna, senior client partner, global consumer markets, at Korn Ferry. “Also, with Indian talent transitioning to global roles, many top seats are getting vacant in India,” he added.84328730While Swiggy is learnt to be scouting for a COO to succeed Vivek Sunder, who will leave the food tech giant by October, beauty retailer Nykaa is building its B2B leadership team under Vikas Gupta who joined as chief executive of the business in May. Flipkart is learnt to be looking for a chief business officer for its travel business, as is natural personal care products maker Mamaearth which is also scouting for a chief business officer, executives directly aware of the developments said. Emails sent to Swiggy, Nykaa, Flipkart and Mamaearth did not elicit responses.“Consumer-facing companies are seeing a significant surge in growth which is leading to demand for high quality leaders with transformation skills and digital orientation,” said executive search firm Positive Moves Consulting partner Sonal Bahl. “While FMCG companies have sustained growth rates despite the hit from the first wave, consumer technology players like Flipkart and Amazon have gained due to the exponential rise in digital demand. In addition, there is a huge influx of foreign capital to fund consumer-facing startups and there has been a record rise in the number of unicorns registered this year. All this is leading to high demand for leadership talent to anchor this growth, with companies using the liquidity to script their growth,” Bahl added.These searches and appointments come at a time when businesses are emerging after a pandemic-induced slump, lockdowns and supply disruptions, companies have improvised after the first wave of Covid and come back with a vengeance, built supply chain resilience and are focusing on digital acceleration across functions.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3k7cFlr