Commercial talent restructure for a global consumer goods company
A leading consumer goods company navigates a major European restructure - and keeps its commercial engine running.
The challenge
When one of the world's largest consumer goods companies announced a major two-year organisational redesign, the scale of change was significant. The programme involved the reduction of thousands of non-manufacturing roles globally alongside the exit of select brands and product lines across European markets. While the restructuring was strategically necessary, it created an immediate and complex talent challenge: the business needed to rapidly backfill critical commercial roles across six European markets without losing momentum in a highly competitive trading environment.
The requirement spanned multiple functions and seniority levels simultaneously, from Country Sales Managers and Regional Marketing Directors through to Digital Commerce Leads and junior brand talent. With internal HR teams stretched by the demands of managing the restructure itself, the business needed a recruitment partner that could operate with pace, precision and a deep understanding of the commercial landscape.
The approach
Interval deployed a dedicated pan-European delivery team operating from a single coordinated brief, ensuring consistency of process and quality of candidate across all six markets. Rather than treating each hire in isolation, we took a unified view of the talent landscape, mapping active and passive candidates across FMCG, consumer goods and adjacent digital sectors simultaneously.
Working closely with both HR and commercial leadership, we agreed a competency framework upfront that could be applied consistently across markets and seniority levels. This allowed us to move quickly without compromising on fit. We maintained regular structured communication with the client throughout, providing market intelligence, candidate feedback and pipeline visibility at every stage - giving the internal team the confidence to focus on the restructure while Interval managed the hiring process end to end.
The results
Interval filled over 25 net-new commercial roles across six European markets within a 90-day window. The first-year retention rate across all placements was 96%, reflecting the quality and rigour of the process rather than the speed alone. The client subsequently engaged Interval on two further mandates as the restructuring programme continued into its second year.