Managing Director | Scaling Food Business | London
Client:
Harmonic is thrilled to be working exclusively with one of the UK's most exciting emerging F&B brands, already establishing themselves as industry leading in the D2C industry having sold millions of their products already. The brand has captured the nations attention through its fun and exciting products and also an extremely compelling back story of how the company started out and has since become one of the fastest growing businesses in 2024.
The business is looking for an ambitious Managing Director to join their business and to lead the company on the next stage of growth after a successful growth rate of c.300% since 2023. The company have also won multiple awards recently acknowledging both the products and the founders entrepreneurship.
Role:
Our client is looking for an incredibly motivated and energetic leader experienced in commercial and operational excellence in a scaling business. The ideal Managing Director will have a great desire to lead the business into the next stage of growth.
Below are the main responsibilities for the role but it is important to note that these are tasks that must be addressed, however, the Managing Director would be entrusted to establish a prioritisation and focus and lead in the hiring of a team and delegation of tasks to cover these responsibilities.
Key Responsibilities:
Commercial Strategy
- Working alongside the founder and senior leadership team to set long-term commercial and strategic goals. This includes managing key strategic planning for growth and regular reporting to the founder around this. This will include involvement in 3-5 year planning cycles.
- Ownership of product development, innovation and brand positioning. This includes building out a successful roadmap which ensures that product offerings match consumer trends and demands. This role will be instrumental in developing the innovation strategy to deliver on this.
- This role will have autonomy over the brands sustainability focus. In short, this role will be instrumental in maintaining and improving eco-friendly or environmental best practice. This extends to product sourcing, distribution and packaging for example.
- Responsible for the formation and launch of new product lines. This includes proactive involvement and management of new product lines/SKUs.
Cross Functional Leadership
- Ensure seamless communication and collaboration across all functions with particular emphasis on partnering with the Head of Operations and CTO.
- Lead improvements around customer acquisition and retention. This involves partnering closely with the outsourced customer success team.
- Take ownership of ad hoc special projects requiring creative solutions and effective execution.
Team & Culture
- Develop and lead end-to-end recruitment processes and strategies to attract and retain the best talent as they scale.
- Develop an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to create a strong employer brand to maintain workplace culture.
- Work with Founders on cultural initiatives to cultivate a supportive, fun and high-performing workplace culture that reflects the companies’ values.
Financial Performance
- Support Founders with the management of outsourced finance function including a review and analysis of budgets and P&L.
- Oversee the COGS analysis to identify cost-saving opportunities whilst maintaining high product quality.
- Implement new cost-tracking processes and present regular reports on production expenses and profitability metrics.
Operations
- Identify and standardise operational processes to enhance visibility and consistency.
- Continuously analyse existing processes and implement optimisations to improve efficiency and ability to scale across the business.
- Ensure team members are supported with L&D and training resources.
What our client would like to see (essential):
- Proven experience working a senior leadership role within a fast-growth scaling business.
- Experience with having worked with a brand with strong social media marketing strategy.
- Evidence of having scaled a business from c.£20M to c.£50M+ ( or similar growth trajectory).
- Past experience working within a food manufacturing environment or similar production or manufacturing business.
- Exceptional leadership and organizational skills, with the ability to inspire and drive results.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities.
What we would like to see (non-essential):
- A passion for food and an understanding of consumer trends in the industry.
- Past experience using Xero.
- Specific Food Delivery/D2C/Ecommerce/Grocery retail industry experience.
- A mixture of both well established businesses and startup experience.
Salary: Competitive Salary + Long Term Incentive Plan
Location: London
Please contact Lidia for more details on [email protected] or Charlie Walker on [email protected]
At Harmonic, we are dedicated to fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace. We actively welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and assure you that every candidate will be thoughtfully considered for the roles we represent, without regard to race, religion, gender expression, disability, or sexual orientation.