When Consumer and Retail Companies Bring Us In
Consumer businesses rarely fail from a single bad decision. They fail from a product defined too loosely, a customer never clearly identified, a competitor response nobody planned for, and inventory bought against a forecast that was hope. Our executives step in at these moments.
We Are Most Often Called For:
Are you experiencing operational, market, strategic or leadership disruptions?
The Consumer and Retail Businesses We Serve
Consumer covers models with little in common on the P&L. A food brand fighting for shelf space at a regional grocer, a subscription DTC company managing payback periods, a multi-unit specialty retailer with lease exposure, and a durable goods manufacturer with a two-year replacement cycle each face different inventory risk, different customer economics, and different reasons to worry. Our executives have led companies across these models.
We work with consumer packaged goods and food and beverage companies, direct-to-consumer and e-commerce brands, specialty and multi-unit retailers, durable goods and home products manufacturers, health, beauty and personal care brands, and apparel, footwear and accessories businesses. Whether you sell through a buyer at a national chain, a marketplace algorithm, or your own storefront, we understand how your customer decides, what your competitors will do about it, and what it costs you to win them back.
Deep Experience Across the Sector
Our executives have owned these numbers. They have sat across from a category buyer defending a price increase, cut a product line that people loved and margin did not, and watched a competitor drop price the week after a launch. That history shapes the advice.
Consumer Packaged Goods, Food & Beverage
Trade spend and deduction management, retailer terms and chargebacks, velocity and sell-through by door, broker and distributor performance, co-packer and supply reliability, shelf-space defense against private label, and commodity input volatility.
Direct-to-Consumer & E-commerce
Contribution margin after shipping and returns, CAC payback and cohort retention, channel mix as paid acquisition gets more expensive, subscription churn, marketplace economics and fee structures, and the fulfillment model that determines whether growth adds cash or consumes it.
Specialty & Multi-Unit Retail
Four-wall economics and unit-level profitability, lease negotiation and portfolio rationalization, labor scheduling against traffic, store-level inventory accuracy, omnichannel fulfillment, and the new-unit model that has to work before you build the next ten.
Durable Goods & Home Products
Longer purchase cycles and considered-purchase marketing, dealer and installer networks, warranty and service cost exposure, freight economics on bulky goods, showroom and configurator investment, and financing partnerships that move the close rate.
Health, Beauty & Personal Care
Regulatory and claims compliance, formulation and contract manufacturing, influencer and creator economics, replenishment behavior and subscription design, prestige versus mass positioning, and the retail partners who decide whether a brand scales.
Apparel, Footwear & Accessories
Seasonal buying and open-to-buy discipline, markdown cadence and full-price sell-through, size and color assortment planning, returns rate and its margin impact, sourcing and tariff exposure, and building a brand identity that survives a category shift.
Find the Right Operating Executive for Your Business
A CXO Partners executive can assess your product, your customer, and your channel economics, stabilize the numbers, and build the commercial discipline that turns a good product into a durable brand.
Steady
Our executives separate the story from the P&L quickly. Within weeks they can tell you which SKUs carry the business, which channels return the money you put in, and which customers come back without being paid to. They make the assortment and spending calls that founders defer, with the cohort data behind them.
Reliable
Retail buyers, sponsors, and lenders recognize the profile. Our executives have presented to category buyers, defended forecasts to boards, negotiated terms with national accounts, and answered the diligence questions consumer companies face on concentration and retention. Teams and trade partners keep moving because someone credible is running it.
Effective
Our executives change what the numbers look like. They sharpen the product definition to the problem it solves, map the buyer's decision path and remove what stalls it, plan the competitive response before the launch rather than after, rebuild contribution margin by channel, and install the customer success and loyalty programs that raise repeat rate. The gains hold after they leave.
Why the Second Purchase Decides the Business
Two consumer brands spend the same $2M acquiring customers this year. One earns 41% of those buyers back within 12 months. The other earns 12%. Three years later the first company is worth several times the second, and the difference never showed up in a first-year revenue comparison.
Acquisition cost sets the entry price, and repeat rate sets what you can afford to pay. When a third of your customers return on their own, every paid dollar buys a relationship rather than a transaction, and you can outbid competitors for the same impression. When they do not return, you are renting revenue and the rent goes up every year as auction prices climb.
Retention starts before the sale. A product defined against a vague benefit attracts buyers with mismatched expectations, and those buyers churn, return the item, or leave the review that raises everyone else's cost. Getting the problem statement right, and matching it to the demographic and behavioral profile of people who actually have that problem, does more for retention than any post-purchase email sequence.
Competitors get a vote as well. Launch into an established category and the incumbent responds with price, with promotion, or with a fast-follow product using their existing shelf position and supply advantage. Companies that model those responses before launch price for the fight and hold margin through it. Companies that do not discover the plan was built on a promotional price they cannot sustain.
Then there is what happens after the sale. Service response, replacement handling, and the way you treat a customer with a problem determine whether they buy again or tell others not to. Our executives build these systems from inside the business, own the number, and stay until it moves.
Results from the clients we’ve served
The team transformed our professional services offerings and accelerated our ability to scale. They also provided expert M&A due diligence and guidance leading to our successful exit. - Bonz Hart, CEO, Meridium
Within a highly challenging environment, Bill was integral to the development of the strategy and execution of the tactics to protect, enhance, and then secure the value of RiceBran Technologies (NASDAQ - RIBT). - Multiple Board Members
Mark's biggest contribution has been to inject confidence into our finances and financial reporting for our entire leadership team. We can base our management decisions on his very reliable information and insights. He's an excellent communicator, and under his financial leadership, we've seen our EBITDA increase substantially. - Jay McCumber, CEO, Pine Hill Manufacturing
We leveraged CXO Partners' CFO services to grow. They helped us package two businesses that led to successful M&A exits. I can’t recommend them and Mike Casey highly enough. - Alexei Rojanets, President & CCO, Aptitude Health
Let’s Begin
We enable businesses to focus on core competencies by providing flexible, customized professional services supporting our clients’ strategic objectives.
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Our Team
Rick Gruenhagen
Richard Rothschild
E. Jeffrey Hutchinson
Alejandro Mainetto
Tracy Deuell
Alan Eddie
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