Practical, non-promotional guides on executive search, leadership hiring, C-suite roles, executive compensation, governance, and building leadership teams — with deep focus on beauty, personal care, and the broader consumer sector. Start with our hubs: C-Suite Roles, Executive Hiring Guides, Beauty Leadership, Executive Compensation, and the Glossary.
How to Hire an Oral Care Executive
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHire oral care leaders who combine credibility on the health and science the category involves with strong consumer and brand capability, and an understanding of oral care as an everyday-habit category increasingly touched by premiumisation and innovation. The best pair genuine understanding of the health-and-science […]
How to Hire a Sun Care Executive
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHire sun care leaders who combine genuine credibility on the science, efficacy, and safety that sun care demands with beauty and consumer brand capability, and an understanding of the category’s regulatory and seasonal dynamics. Because sun care is both a beauty product and a health […]
How to Hire a Swimwear Executive
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHire swimwear leaders who combine genuine product and design capability — including the technical demands of fit and performance — with fashion and brand sensibility and an understanding of the category’s pronounced seasonality and its body-confidence dimension. The best pair a feel for desirable, well-fitting […]
Retained vs Contingency Search: What’s the Difference?
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerIn retained search, a firm is engaged exclusively and paid a retainer to conduct a thorough, committed search for a role; in contingency search, one or more firms are paid only if they place a candidate, with no exclusivity or retainer. Retained search suits senior, […]
CFO vs COO: What’s the Difference?
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerA CFO leads a business’s finances — financial strategy, management, reporting, and often capital and investor relations; a COO leads its operations — running the day-to-day execution of the business. In short, the CFO owns the financial engine and the COO owns the operational engine. […]
Value Creation in Private Equity: The Role of Leadership
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerValue creation in private equity is how investors grow the value of a business over their ownership — through growth, improvement, and strategic change — to achieve a strong return. Leadership is central to it: the management team executes the value-creation plan, so getting leadership […]
Management Incentive Plans in Private Equity Explained
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerA management incentive plan (MIP) is the equity-based scheme through which a private equity-backed company’s management team shares in the value they help create — aligning leaders’ interests with the investors’ around a successful outcome. It is a central feature of PE-backed businesses, designed to […]
Refillable & Sustainable Beauty: Leadership for the Shift
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerSustainable and refillable beauty reflects the industry’s response to environmental pressure and consumer expectations — reducing packaging waste and environmental impact through refillable formats, better materials, and more responsible practices. For leadership, it demands genuine commitment (not greenwashing), the capability to innovate and operationalise sustainability, […]
Skinification of Beauty: What It Means for Leadership
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerSkinification is the trend of skincare principles — ingredients, efficacy, and skin-health thinking — spreading across beauty into haircare, body care, makeup, and beyond, as consumers apply a skincare mindset to more categories. For leadership, it raises the importance of ingredient and efficacy credibility, blurs […]
How to Hire a Handbags & Leather Goods Executive
By Annabel Norman, Managing Partner · Norman Consultants The short answerHire handbags and leather goods leaders who combine genuine product, craft, and design expertise with luxury or fashion brand capability, matched to where the brand sits. The category is built on craftsmanship, desirability, and often significant value per product, so the best leaders understand the […]
