CPG & Consumer
Operators for consumer brands scaling through complexity
Consumer brands get complicated fast. A product that worked in one channel now has to work across retail, DTC, and trade. Margins get squeezed between trade spend and cost of goods. The org that launched the brand isn’t the org that scales it. And growth that came easily can stall just as quickly when the market shifts. Scaling a consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand is an operating problem as much as a marketing one.
We bring fractional and interim executives who have run finance, operations, marketing, and people functions inside consumer and food brands through exactly this kind of complexity. Our leaders have scaled brands across channels and geographies, fixed the operating model underneath the growth, and rebuilt marketing engines when the old playbook stopped working.
What we do for CPG and consumer companies
Finance and operating discipline. Margin and cost-structure work, working-capital and inventory planning, and the reporting to manage a multi-channel business. The operating muscle a brand needs to scale without losing money on the way up. [Link: Grow Enterprise Value]
Marketing tied to revenue, not vanity. A forensic audit of brand and digital performance, channel mix across retail, DTC, and trade, and an embedded marketing leader who runs to measurable KPIs. We diagnose why growth stalled and rebuild the engine to restart it.
People and integration through scale. Org design, compensation, retention, and the HR discipline to manage a workforce that’s growing fast or spanning new geographies, including the people side of acquisitions.
Supply chain and procurement. Procurement, supply chain, and inventory optimization, plus vendor and third-party rationalization, to take cost out and add reliability as volume grows.
Why consumer brands choose Everest
CPG runs on details that generalists miss: trade spend, retail readiness, shelf economics, the difference between channels. Our Managing Directors have operated inside consumer and food brands and know where the money leaks and where the growth hides. We pair that with AI that reads the business the way an investor would, and a bench across finance, operations, marketing, and HR, so a brand can pull in exactly the discipline it needs at each stage of scale.
Proof
A private-equity-backed consumer brand that grew fast during the pandemic saw momentum slow afterward, despite strong brand awareness. A forensic audit uncovered structural gaps in marketing, user experience, and team design. We delivered quick wins, refreshed the website, stood up project management tools, hired a marketing lead, and built a roadmap to shift the brand from reactive to proactive marketing, with fractional CMO leadership to execute it.
A $150M consumer goods company was carrying fragmented HR infrastructure across three separate systems, with escalating labor and staffing costs. We consolidated the systems into one platform, renegotiated vendor and staffing contracts, and eliminated duplicate coverage, removing $2M in annual cost.
A $250M consumer goods company executing three cross-border acquisitions, in the Czech Republic, China, and Mexico, brought us in to lead the people and integration strategy. We aligned workforce, compliance, and leadership across geographies and standardized HR governance while honoring local requirements, enabling 10x growth post-acquisition.
Frequently asked questions
Do you work with food and beverage brands specifically? Yes. Food and beverage is part of our consumer practice, alongside other CPG and consumer-products categories.
Can you help a brand that’s growing but losing money? That’s a common reason brands call us. We find where margin is leaking, in cost structure, trade spend, supply chain, or channel mix, and install the discipline to fix it.
Do you handle the marketing side as well as finance? Yes. We provide fractional marketing leadership alongside finance, operations, and HR, which matters in consumer businesses where growth and margin are tightly linked.
