How to Build a High-Performing Leadership Team
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHigh-performing leadership teams share a few things: the right people with complementary strengths, genuine alignment on goals and priorities, trust and honest debate, clear ownership and accountability, and a shared commitment to the whole business over individual functions. Building one takes deliberate effort from the […]
Signs Your Business Has Outgrown Its Leadership
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerA business may have outgrown its leadership when the same problems keep recurring, when decisions bottleneck at the top, when the business is operating beyond the team’s prior experience, or when growth stalls without clear external cause. These are signals to strengthen or evolve the […]
Beauty Retail Leadership: Hiring for the Retail Channel
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerBeauty retail leadership is about winning where beauty is sold — mastering the specialty and department-store retail relationships, the merchandising and in-store experience, and the growing overlap with digital and direct channels. Leaders need deep retail relationships and execution alongside brand and commercial strength, because […]
Prestige vs Mass Beauty Leadership: What’s Different
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerPrestige beauty leadership centres on brand desirability, experience, and premium positioning, often through selective distribution; mass beauty leadership centres on scale, value, broad distribution, and winning at retail. The instincts and models differ enough that strong leaders in one do not automatically succeed in the […]
How to Hire a Fragrance Brand Executive
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHiring fragrance leadership means finding people who understand the category’s distinctive blend of creativity, craft, and commercial reality — the role of scent creation and the perfumer relationship, the storytelling and emotion that sell fragrance, and the commercial and retail dynamics of the category. The […]
Executive Bonus Structures Explained
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerAn executive bonus is variable pay tied to performance, usually paid annually against defined targets — financial, strategic, and often personal or team objectives. How a bonus is structured signals what the business wants the leader to prioritise, so designing it well, around the right […]
What Is Executive Severance?
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerExecutive severance is the compensation and terms a senior leader receives on leaving a business, particularly if their employment is ended by the company. Agreed in advance as part of the appointment, it provides security to the executive and clarity to the business, and typically […]
Board Committees Explained
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerBoard committees are smaller groups of directors that focus in depth on specific areas — most commonly audit (financial oversight and risk), remuneration (executive pay), and nomination (board and leadership appointments). They allow the board to give proper attention to complex areas, and their composition […]
What Is Corporate Governance?
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerCorporate governance is the framework of rules, relationships, and processes by which a company is directed and held accountable — chiefly the roles of the board, management, and owners, and how they interact. Good governance provides oversight, accountability, and sound decision-making; it becomes more important […]
What Does a Board Chair Do?
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerA board Chair leads the board — running its meetings, shaping its agenda and effectiveness, guiding the relationship between the board and the CEO, and providing counsel and stability. The Chair does not run the company (that is the CEO’s job) but leads how it […]
