OUR SERVICES
Talent acquisition, intelligence & advisory services for the consumer and retail industry
MacGregor Black operates at the intersection of deep sector knowledge and market intelligence. As The Complete Talent Partner, we deliver end-to-end talent services to consumer and retail businesses across executive and management levels, combining rigorous search methodology with the kind of market understanding that only comes from decades of specialist practice. Whether you need a single transformative hire or a fully integrated talent strategy, we bring the expertise, the network, and the conviction to get it right.
Including:
— Executive Search
— Management Recruitment
— Interim Solutions
— Project Recruitment
— RPO
Including:
— Talent Mapping
— Salary Benchmarking
— Market Insights
— Workforce Planning
— Competitor Intelligence
Including:
— Leadership Assessment
— Succession Planning
— Employer Branding
— Organisational Design
— DE&I Advisory
OUR SERVICES
Talent Acquisition
Our talent acquisition services are built for the complexity of the consumer and retail sector. From retained executive search to high-volume management recruitment and flexible interim resourcing, we design each engagement around your organisation’s specific goals, not an off-the-shelf process. Every search begins with a thorough understanding of your business, your culture, and the commercial challenge at hand. What follows is a structured, transparent, and uncompromising pursuit of the right talent.
— Executive Search
Executive search in consumer and retail demands more than a good brief and a broad network. It requires genuine sector fluency, the ability to identify, assess, and attract C-suite and senior leadership talent who will drive real commercial outcomes. MacGregor Black’s executive search practice combines an extensive global network built over decades of specialist consultancy with a rigorous, confidential process that protects both client and candidate. From initial scoping and job description development through to market mapping, NDA management, shortlist presentation, and onboarding support, we manage every stage with precision and discretion.
— Management Recruitment
Strong organisations are built on the quality of leadership at every level. Our management recruitment service is designed to identify and secure the functional specialists and mid-senior professionals who form the operational backbone of consumer and retail businesses. Drawing on deep practice-area expertise across Food & Drink, Sports, Outdoor, Fashion & Luxury, and Consumer Goods, our consultants bring a level of market knowledge that generalist recruiters simply cannot replicate. Every search is tailored, every shortlist is considered, and every placement is backed by genuine understanding of what the role and the business actually need.
— Interim Solutions
When pace is critical and permanent resourcing isn’t the right answer, interim talent provides the expertise and momentum your business needs. Our interim recruitment solutions connect consumer and retail organisations with experienced leaders and functional specialists available for project-based, transitional, or cover assignments quickly and with confidence. We draw on a dedicated network of interim professionals with proven track records in sector-relevant roles, ensuring that speed of placement never comes at the cost of quality or fit.
— Project Recruitment
Growth, restructuring, new market entry, and operational transformation all create surges in hiring demand that standard recruitment models aren’t designed to meet. Our project recruitment service provides a structured, scalable response to multi-vacancy or time-sensitive requirements, delivering cohesive talent strategies rather than a series of isolated searches. We bring salary benchmarking, competitor analysis, talent mapping, and skills gap identification into a single coordinated programme, giving your organisation a more holistic view of the market and the people within it.
— Recruitment Process Outsourcing
For organisations seeking a more integrated partnership, our Recruitment Process Outsourcing service embeds MacGregor Black directly into your talent function. Acting as your in-house partner, we take full ownership of the hiring process, from strategy and attraction through to screening, assessment, and offer management. Our RPO model is built to improve candidate quality, control cost-per-hire, and create a sustainable pipeline of talent, all while maintaining the brand standards and cultural alignment your business demands. It is a long-term investment in how your organisation acquires and retains people.
OUR SERVICES
Talent Intelligence
Informed decisions require informed intelligence. Our talent intelligence services give consumer and retail leaders access to the market data, competitive context, and workforce insight they need to plan with confidence, whether that means understanding the landscape before a critical hire, benchmarking reward structures, or mapping out the strategic talent implications of business growth. This is not background research. It is commercially actionable intelligence, delivered by specialists who understand the sector inside out.
— Talent Mapping
Our talent mapping service provides a structured, research-led assessment of a defined market and the key individuals within it. By identifying and profiling talent across agreed geographies, competitors, and target organisations, we give clients a clear picture of the available landscape before any active recruitment begins. This is an essential tool for succession planning, proactive pipeline development, and ensuring your business stays ahead of the market rather than reacting to it.
— Salary Benchmarking
Getting rewards right is fundamental to attracting and retaining the best people. Our salary benchmarking service delivers accurate, sector-specific compensation data across functions and seniority levels within consumer and retail, enabling clients to make evidence-based decisions on pay structures, offer strategies, and total reward packages. Whether you are reviewing an existing framework or entering a new geography or function, our benchmarking ensures your position in the market is competitive, credible, and sustainable.
— Market Insights
The consumer and retail sector moves quickly. Our market insights service keeps senior leadership and HR teams informed on the trends, talent dynamics, and structural shifts shaping the industry, from candidate supply and demand to the emergence of critical new capabilities. Delivered through bespoke reporting and ongoing advisory conversations, our insights help clients anticipate change rather than simply respond to it.
— Workforce Planning
Effective workforce planning connects business strategy to talent strategy. Our workforce planning support helps organisations understand their current capability, model future requirements, and build a structured approach to closing the gap, whether through recruitment, development, or restructuring. Drawing on deep sector knowledge and live market data, we work alongside HR and leadership teams to ensure that talent decisions are aligned with where the business is genuinely heading.
— Competitor Intelligence
Understanding how your competitors build, structure, and retain their leadership teams is a significant strategic advantage. Our competitor intelligence service provides detailed analysis of rival organisations’ talent profiles, organisational structures, and people strategies, giving senior leaders and boards the context they need to make smarter decisions about their own talent agenda. This is insight that goes far beyond publicly available information, informed by decades of specialist market presence in consumer and retail.
OUR SERVICES
Talent Advisory
Beyond search and intelligence, MacGregor Black offers a suite of advisory services designed to strengthen the talent foundations of consumer and retail organisations. From evaluating leadership capability to building the employer brand that attracts the best, our advisory practice brings an independent, expert perspective to the decisions that matter most. We work alongside boards, HR directors, and senior leadership teams as a trusted partner, challenging conventional thinking and offering counsel grounded in real sector experience.
— Leadership Assessment
Understanding the capability, potential, and risk profile of your current and future leaders is essential to informed decision-making. Our leadership assessment service provides rigorous, structured evaluation of individuals and teams, drawing on proven frameworks and deep functional expertise to give clients a clear, objective view of their leadership landscape. Whether informing a promotion, an acquisition, or a succession decision, our assessments are designed to reduce uncertainty and increase confidence.
— Succession Planning
The most resilient organisations plan for leadership continuity long before it becomes urgent. Our succession planning service helps consumer and retail businesses identify critical roles, assess internal pipeline strength, and develop structured plans for leadership transition, minimising the disruption that comes with unexpected change and maximising the value of the talent already within the business. We bring external perspective and sector context to a process that is often too close to see clearly from the inside.
— Employer Branding
Your employer brand is the single most powerful tool in your talent attraction strategy. How your organisation is perceived as a place to work determines the quality and volume of candidates you attract and, ultimately, the calibre of people you can retain. MacGregor Black works directly with clients to define, articulate, and activate their employer brand within the consumer and retail sector, combining market insight with full-scale marketing support to ensure your organisation presents itself at its best to the talent that matters most.
— Organisational Design
The most effective talent strategies are built on the right organisational foundations. Our organisational design advisory helps consumer and retail businesses structure their teams, define accountabilities, and align people architecture with commercial strategy, whether that means scaling for growth, integrating an acquisition, or redesigning a function around new priorities. We bring independent perspective and deep sector knowledge to a process that has a direct impact on performance, culture, and the ability to attract and retain the best people.
— DE&I Advisory
Building diverse and inclusive leadership teams is both a commercial imperative and a cultural commitment. Our DE&I advisory service supports consumer and retail organisations in developing and executing meaningful strategies, from auditing current hiring practices and identifying structural barriers to accessing diverse talent pipelines and measuring progress over time. We approach DE&I with the same rigour and candour we bring to all our work: not as a compliance exercise, but as a genuine driver of business performance and organisational health.
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