CHRO – Integration and Culture — Direct-To-Consumer Organisation

The mandate

A multi-category consumer group acquired a digitally native subscription brand to gain direct customer insight and a faster product model. The brand has continued to grow, but integration has become contentious. The acquired team sees parent processes as slow and channel-protective; wholesale leaders see duplicate marketing, planning and supply decisions. Both have evidence. Subscription cohorts and product tests move faster, while inventory, claims, privacy and fulfilment issues increasingly affect the wider group.

The next route-to-market phase requires shared capabilities without dissolving the acquired brand into a central function. Customer data, product, merchandising, performance marketing, supply, fulfilment and care accountabilities are unclear. Employees receive conflicting priorities from brand and functional leaders. Founder involvement remains valuable but sometimes bypasses the leadership team, and critical digital talent is beginning to question the future model.

The CHRO – Integration and Culture will lead organisation design, leadership, workforce, reward, talent and cultural integration across the DTC business and parent interfaces. Approximately 675 employees and material partners fall within the immediate perimeter. The CHRO must distinguish productive difference from duplicated authority and ensure that integration value does not depend on attrition or informal workarounds.

This urgent new role is on site in New York and reports to the Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor. It requires direct engagement with the founder, parent executives, digital teams, fulfilment operations and customer care. The appointment is permanent and carries regular board exposure.

Why this seat is open

People leadership has been split between acquired-brand and group teams. The route-to-market review exposed enterprise choices no existing HR leader has authority to settle. The board created the CHRO role before organisation uncertainty causes further critical departures or hardens into competing operating systems.

What you will own

• Design accountabilities across brand, product, customer data, merchandising, performance marketing, wholesale, supply, fulfilment and care.
• Lead workforce and integration planning across approximately 675 employees and partners, including build, retain, redeploy and remove decisions.
• Clarify the founder’s continuing role, decision rights and interfaces with the brand CEO and group executives.
• Assess and select leaders for the target model, resolving duplicate or ambiguous roles with transparent evidence and transition.
• Preserve technical and digital career paths, product experimentation and customer closeness where they create value, while integrating privacy, claims, finance and supply controls.
• Align reward and performance across subscription growth, retention, contribution, inventory, service and brand outcomes.
• Build capability in lifecycle marketing, digital product, analytics, demand, fulfilment and customer operations and establish succession.
• Govern employee relations, acquired terms, location and workforce changes and cultural commitments through implementation.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Listen separately to acquired and parent teams, map actual decisions and identify critical talent and founder dependencies. Agree integration principles and interim authority, stop parallel reorganisations and stabilise leadership and retention in product, growth and supply.
• Months 4–9: Implement the target model and leadership choices, align objectives and establish shared-service and retained-brand boundaries. Launch technical and digital careers, address duplicate roles lawfully and redesign incentives around customer and economic quality.
• Months 10–12: Demonstrate faster decisions, stable critical talent and improved collaboration across demand, inventory and customer issues. Complete succession, reward and capability plans and retire temporary integration governance into normal executive ownership.

What the board will measure

• Critical digital, product, supply and customer talent retained through integration with named succession and development.
• Decision speed and accountability across brand and group interfaces, including fewer founder or CEO escalations.
• Subscription retention, contribution, inventory and service outcomes supported by aligned leadership and incentives.
• Duplicated roles and processes removed without loss of essential customer or product capability.
• Product experimentation continuing within clear privacy, claims, financial and supply boundaries.
• Employee-relations, acquired commitments and role transitions completed lawfully and credibly.

The person

You are a CHRO, integration leader, digital business people executive or organisation head with 22–28 years in consumer goods, retail, technology-enabled commerce or subscription businesses. You have integrated a founder-led acquisition into a larger group without destroying the capability acquired. You have supported at least 600 employees and led a people or integration team of at least 30.

You understand DTC economics and work. You can discuss cohort retention, performance marketing, digital product, inventory, fulfilment and care and translate them into roles and incentives. You have clarified a founder’s post-acquisition authority and managed difficult leadership selection across acquired and parent teams.

Relevant backgrounds include consumer subscriptions, digitally native brands, omnichannel retail or consumer technology. A traditional FMCG HR leader must show direct digital-product and acquisition depth. Technology leaders must show physical supply, customer operations and consumer claims experience.

The role is on site in New York. Candidates elsewhere may qualify with relocation. The CHRO must gain trust from both cultures without becoming their advocate against the enterprise and be willing to preserve difference when it is supported by customer and operating evidence.

Compensation and terms

The role carries a USD 360,000–480,000 base range, annual incentive and long-term participation. Measures will cover integration value, critical talent, decision effectiveness, customer outcomes and leadership. This is a permanent urgent new appointment. Relocation and substantiated forfeited awards may be considered.

Confidentiality

The parent, acquired brand, founder and employees are confidential. Identifying information will be shared only after suitability and the required safeguards are established. Applicants must not contact possible brand teams, investors or advisers to infer the client.

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