What Does a Board Director Do? A Guide for Consumer & PE-Backed Businesses
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerA board director provides governance, oversight, and counsel — holding management accountable, guiding strategy, and bringing independent, experienced perspective. In consumer and PE-backed businesses, non-executive directors and chairs often bring specific sector or functional expertise, and the right board becomes a genuine asset rather than […]
Executive Onboarding: Setting a New Leader Up to Succeed
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerExecutive hires rarely fail on capability — they fail on fit, unclear expectations, and weak early integration. Treating a senior leader’s first quarter as a deliberate onboarding period, with a clear mandate and the relationships to deliver it, is what turns a good appointment into […]
How to Hire a Fashion Creative Director
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerThe creative director sets a fashion brand’s aesthetic and vision — one of the most consequential and most scrutinised appointments a house makes. Hiring well means matching a designer’s creative identity to the brand’s, through a confidential, relationship-led search, and setting up the creative–commercial partnership […]
Succession Planning for Founder-Led Beauty Brands
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerSuccession planning is preparing for leadership transitions before they are forced on you — knowing who could lead the business next, developing or sourcing them deliberately, and planning how the founder’s role evolves. For founder-led beauty brands, it protects both continuity and the brand identity […]
What Does a Chief Digital Officer Do? The CDO Role Explained
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerA Chief Digital Officer (CDO) leads digital strategy and transformation — typically owning data and technology, the digital customer experience, e-commerce, and the organisational change to make a business genuinely digital. The role exists to drive digital across the whole company rather than leave it […]
What Is Talent Mapping? A Guide for Leadership Hiring
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerTalent mapping is the structured research of the leadership market for a role or function — who the strong candidates are, where they sit, what they earn, and how available they are — done before a search formally begins. It turns senior hiring from a […]
How to Hire a Beauty CFO: When to Hire and What to Look For
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHire a beauty CFO when financial complexity outgrows a controller — when margin needs active management, growth needs funding, or a transaction is coming. The right CFO brings discipline and commercial partnership, and is fluent in a brand-led, high-investment category where finance has to understand […]
Founder to CEO: When to Bring in a Chief Executive
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerFounders bring in a CEO when the business needs leadership at a stage or scale they cannot or do not want to provide full-time — or when they want to return to the brand, product, or creative work where they add most value. The transitions […]
How to Hire a CMO: When to Hire and What to Look For
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHire a CMO when brand and demand become too important and too complex to lead in fragments. The right marketing leader pairs brand vision with commercial discipline — building a brand that drives demand and owning marketing’s contribution to revenue across brand, performance, digital, and […]
Operating Partner vs Portfolio CEO: The Difference Explained
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerAn operating partner works across a private equity firm’s portfolio, supporting value creation at several companies; a portfolio CEO leads one business day to day and owns its results. The operating partner advises and challenges; the CEO executes. Both are hired against a specific value-creation […]
