Job: General Manager North America (Premium Branded CPG)

Company Description

Our client is a European family-owned group in premium branded consumer products, with a portfolio of long-established and contemporary brands sold internationally. The group manufactures in Europe and Asia and operates through subsidiaries in its principal markets. Its United States business is the group’s largest and most profitable, headquartered in New Jersey within the New York metropolitan area, where the company also operates its own distribution center serving the United States and Canada. The culture is mission-led and hands-on, with a compact global leadership team, unusually long employee tenure, and a shareholder base that takes a deliberately long-term view of the business.

Objective of the Role

Reporting to the Group Chief Executive Officer and serving on the global leadership team, the General Manager, North America holds full profit and loss accountability for the region: a business of under $100 million in net sales at strong double-digit operating margins, a team of approximately 100 people, and a company-operated distribution center. The mandate is to grow the region substantially over the next three years while protecting margin, to accelerate the transition from a traditional specialty wholesale model to a genuinely omnichannel one, and to build the organizational capability and pace required to sustain that growth. The position carries real local decision-making authority and direct ownership of the region’s largest customer relationships.

Ideal Profile

Our client is seeking an accomplished market leader rather than a functional specialist: a country or regional head with a commercial background, willing to lead annual negotiations with major accounts personally. Candidates will have run a United States or North American business of comparable or greater scale within premium, brand-led consumer products — for example beauty and personal care, specialty and premium food and beverage, toys and creative play, housewares, or comparable lifestyle categories. Experience across more than one category is strongly preferred. Fluency with mass merchants, national specialty retailers and major e-commerce marketplaces is essential, as is the ability to manage a portfolio of several thousand active references. The successful candidate will be either an American executive with an established international outlook or a European executive with a proven United States track record, comfortable alongside a European leadership team and a family shareholder board. Candidates with the potential to progress to a group-level leadership role over a three- to five-year horizon will receive particular consideration.

Responsibilities

• Own the North American profit and loss, delivering net sales, margin, cash flow and working capital objectives.
• Lead annual negotiations and senior relationships with the region’s principal specialty, mass and e-commerce accounts.
• Define and execute the omnichannel strategy, including pricing architecture across channels, channel-specific assortments and category management.
• Accelerate e-commerce and direct-to-consumer growth from a low single-digit base toward a double-digit share of group revenue.
• Determine and implement the future operating model for regional fulfillment and the distribution center.
• Lead, develop and structure a leadership team of seven direct reports spanning commercial channels, marketing, finance, human resources and distribution.
• Represent the region on the global leadership team and in front of the shareholder board.

Requirements

• Senior executive experience with full profit and loss ownership of a North American business or region of significant scale.
• A demonstrated record of profitable growth, commercial performance and organizational development in branded consumer products.
• Multi-channel expertise across wholesale, mass, specialty and e-commerce, with strong category management and data discipline.
• Experience within a complex international organization, ideally European-owned, including exposure at board or executive committee level.
• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or equivalent desirable.
• Willingness to travel regularly across North America and to Europe.
• Hybrid presence at the company’s New Jersey office, currently two days per week and moving to three.