Why CPG Brands Struggle to Hire Operations Leaders (And How to Fix It)

Every CPG founder I talk to has a version of the same story. They decided it was time to hire a VP of Operations or COO. They wrote a job description, opened the search, and got resumes back. And what came back was a pile of candidates who looked right on paper — and weren't.

Operations is the hardest executive hire in consumer packaged goods. Not because there aren't talented operations leaders out there. There are. The problem is that most of them aren't visible, aren't on job boards, and aren't available on the timeline a growing brand needs. And when they do surface, a lot of them have operations experience that doesn't actually translate to what running ops inside a branded CPG company requires.

Here is why the search is hard, where brands go wrong, and how to run a process that actually works.

Why the Operations Talent Pool Is Genuinely Thin

Start with the macro. A joint report from Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute found that approximately 1.9 million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2033 if the industry does not close its workforce gap. That shortage runs from the plant floor up through the executive suite. You are not imagining that the senior candidate pool feels thin. It is thin.

At the same time, the National Association of Manufacturers reports that nearly 60% of manufacturers cite the inability to attract and retain employees as their top business challenge. When that challenge hits every tier of your supply chain simultaneously — co-packers, distributors, and you — everyone is fighting for the same limited pool of experienced operators.

And at the VP and COO level, the math gets worse. These are people who have already been found by someone. They are usually employed, usually not browsing LinkedIn for their next move, and usually fielding calls from two or three brands at any given time. The passive candidate problem in ops is more acute than in any other function I hire for.

CPG Operations Is a Specialty, Not a Category

The second reason these searches are hard: CPG operations is a specific discipline, and executives from adjacent industries often struggle to adapt to it quickly enough to justify the hire.

I have seen founders get excited about a candidate who ran a multi-plant operation for an automotive parts manufacturer. The resume is impressive. The candidate is sharp. And within six months, the brand is quietly admitting the hire isn't working. Not because the executive isn't talented — they are — but because consumer packaged goods runs differently from most industries that produce impressive-looking operations resumes.

The operations executive who ran a Tier-1 automotive supplier may have a more impressive resume than the person who managed co-manufacturing for a $50M snack brand. But in CPG, the snack brand person is almost always the right hire.

Co-manufacturing is the core competency

Most branded CPG companies don't own their own production facilities. They manage co-manufacturers — and managing a co-packing relationship is nothing like running a plant you own. When your co-packer's line goes down at the wrong time, you don't have authority to fix it. You need relationships, leverage, and the credibility that comes from knowing exactly how those facilities operate. Candidates who have only ever managed owned plants often underestimate how different this feels.

Food safety and regulatory compliance is non-negotiable

FDA, FSMA, USDA — depending on your category, the regulatory environment is specific and the consequences of getting it wrong are severe. An operations leader who hasn't navigated food safety audits, supplier compliance programs, and labeling requirements is going to spend their first year learning things your brand doesn't have time to wait on.

Retailer scorecards punish operations failures directly

In CPG, your major retail customers score your fill rates, your on-time in-full performance, and your case pack accuracy. A weak operations leader doesn't just create internal inefficiency — they create chargebacks, lost shelf space, and damaged buyer relationships that show up in your P&L almost immediately. The right operations executive understands OTIF compliance as a core KPI, not an afterthought.

SKU complexity and shelf life change the math

Managing a supply chain with short shelf-life SKUs, seasonal demand spikes, and multiple pack sizes requires a fundamentally different planning approach than most industries. Leaders who built their careers in durable goods frequently underestimate this.

Three Mistakes CPG Brands Make in Operations Searches

Mistake 1: Writing a generic job description

The most common job description I see for a VP of Operations at a CPG brand reads like it was written for a generic supply chain role at a large corporation. It lists responsibilities without outcomes, borrows language from whatever the founder found on LinkedIn, and says nothing specific about the brand's actual operational challenges. The result is a candidate pool that's large and almost entirely wrong. A strong CPG executive job description is specific about stage, scale, and what success looks like in the first six months — not just what the person will be responsible for.

Mistake 2: Fishing in the wrong pond

Most founders search too narrowly or too broadly. Too narrow looks like: only candidates with a VP of Operations title at a CPG company of similar size. Too broad looks like: any senior operations leader, any industry. Both miss the real target.

The best CPG operations hires often come from adjacent pools: co-manufacturers and contract packagers who have operated on the other side of the relationship, national distributors who understand the retailer-facing complexity of CPG logistics, and adjacent categories like pet food, nutraceuticals, and personal care that share the same operational DNA as food and beverage. These candidates may not have the title you are expecting, but they have the experience your search actually needs. Working with a search partner who knows where to look in CPG can dramatically shorten this discovery phase.

Mistake 3: Moving too slowly

Operations candidates are in demand. They have strong networks. And when a strong candidate starts talking to a company that's serious and moves decisively, they stay engaged. When the same candidate goes a week without a callback, or waits three weeks between interviews, they either accept another offer or take a counter-offer from their current employer. I have watched solid searches fall apart not because the candidate pool was thin, but because the process moved too slowly to capture a great candidate when one appeared.

What the Right Candidate Actually Looks Like

Here is what I have found to be true across the operations searches we run at High Altitude Partners, focused exclusively on F&B and CPG: the strongest candidates are almost never the ones who surface first on LinkedIn. They are usually employed, usually being proactively managed by their current employer, and usually not updating their profile or responding to cold InMails.

Title is an unreliable filter. I have placed Directors of Operations who ran circles around VP-titled candidates from larger companies, because the Director had been operating with less organizational support and more direct ownership of outcomes. At a growing CPG brand, that's exactly what you need.

The right operational leader for a $20M–$80M CPG brand has typically managed at least two or three co-manufacturing relationships directly, has been on the hook for OTIF and fill-rate performance with a major retail customer, and has built or rebuilt a demand planning function. They may not have done it under a VP title yet. What matters is that they've done it.

Understanding compensation expectations is also critical. Demand for experienced CPG operations leaders has pushed total comp packages well above where many brands initially budget. Starting the search with an accurate comp range prevents the worst outcome in any executive search: identifying the right person and then losing them because the offer isn't competitive.

How to Fix the Operations Hiring Problem

The good news is that none of this is unsolvable. Most operations searches that go badly weren't doomed from the start — they ran a fixable process that nobody fixed.

Define outcomes before you write the job description. Not responsibilities. Specific, measurable outcomes. What does this person need to have accomplished in six months for you to know they were the right hire? If you can't answer that question, you are not ready to open the search, and any candidate you hire is going to be evaluated against undefined expectations, which is its own problem.

Expand your search universe before you narrow it. Start broader than feels comfortable — into co-manufacturers, distributors, adjacent categories — and then filter by CPG-specific criteria. You will find people you would never have seen if you started with a narrow title filter.

Build a structured interview process around your brand's actual operational challenges. Don't ask generic leadership questions. Ask about the specific problems the person will face in this role: a co-packer relationship that's underperforming, a fill-rate issue with a key account, a demand planning process that needs rebuilding. How they think through those problems tells you far more than any resume summary.

And when you find someone strong, move. Schedule the next interview. Get the reference calls done. Be ready to make an offer without another round of deliberation. The talent pool is real, and it is finite. The brands that hire the best operations leaders are the ones that recognize a great candidate and act like it.

If you are ready to open an operations search, we would be glad to walk you through how we approach the candidate market in F&B and CPG specifically. This is what we do every day, and we are happy to share what we know.