The Challenge
A seventy-five-year-old Toronto-based food manufacturing company with deep roots in traditional grocery retail distribution recognized an urgent need to pivot their go-to-market strategy as consumer purchasing patterns shifted dramatically toward digital channels. The organization sought to create and fill their first-ever Vice President of E-Commerce position, a role that would report directly to the CEO and carry responsibility for building the company’s entire direct-to-consumer infrastructure from scratch. The recruitment challenge was particularly complex because the ideal candidate needed to bridge two very different worlds: they required sophisticated digital commerce expertise including platform selection, digital marketing, fulfillment optimization, and customer data analytics, while also possessing genuine understanding of food manufacturing constraints such as shelf-life management, cold chain logistics, and food safety compliance. The company’s legacy culture, built over three generations of family ownership, meant that change management and stakeholder alignment capabilities were equally critical to technical e-commerce skills. Previous internal attempts to drive digital initiatives had stalled due to cultural resistance, making it essential to find someone who could navigate organizational politics while driving transformation.
The Solution
Lock Search Group recognized that this search required looking beyond traditional CPG e-commerce talent pools to find candidates who could authentically connect with a legacy manufacturing culture while bringing digital transformation expertise. Our strategy targeted three distinct candidate profiles: e-commerce leaders from food and beverage companies who had built D2C channels from the ground up; digital transformation executives from adjacent industries such as consumer health products or specialty food who understood regulated product distribution; and management consultants with food industry specialization who had transitioned to operating roles. We conducted extensive stakeholder interviews with the CEO, board members, long-tenured operations leaders, and key retail partners to understand both the explicit requirements and the implicit cultural factors that would determine success. Our assessment process went beyond standard competency evaluation to include a detailed cultural fit analysis, scenario-based interviews exploring how candidates would approach resistance to change, and reference checks specifically targeting colleagues who had witnessed candidates drive transformation in traditional organizations. We also facilitated informal conversations between finalists and skeptical internal stakeholders to test chemistry and communication style fit.
The Outcome
The tailored search approach yielded 34 candidates who met the technical qualifications, from which we identified 12 whose backgrounds suggested the cultural navigation capabilities essential for success in this environment. After comprehensive assessment, we presented four finalists to the executive team, each representing a different pathway to the role. The successful candidate came from a mid-sized specialty food company where she had built their e-commerce division from zero to $40 million in revenue over five years while simultaneously modernizing their legacy ERP and supply chain systems. Critically, she had accomplished this transformation within a 50-year-old family business, giving her direct experience managing the cultural dynamics the client faced. During her first year, she launched the company’s first direct-to-consumer website, established partnerships with three major online grocery platforms, and built an e-commerce team of eight professionals. By month eighteen, digital channels represented 15% of total revenue, and internal survey data showed significantly improved organizational confidence in the digital transformation strategy. The placement demonstrated how finding the right cultural fit can be as important as technical qualifications in transformation leadership roles.