For many companies in consumer packaged goods and associated sectors, the diagnosis is familiar. Growth is hard to secure. Price increases face resistance, and costs continue to rise. Demand has softened, and organisations are looking to increase revenue and improve margins with fewer people and lower fixed costs. We are operating in an environment where demand shifts quickly, and predictability has all but disappeared. Leaders understand they need fresh skills. They need sales hunters as well as farmers. They need people who can drive innovation, smarter operations, and new ways to grow revenue. They need people who can build the capabilities the business needs for what comes next. None of this is new. What is new is the slow pace of action.
Throughout this year, we have seen leadership teams acknowledge the need for change but delay the decisions needed to act on it. Ahead of the summer, many held back until they saw their half-year results. After that, attention moved to budgeting, as it always does through to year end. My conversations with CEOs and senior executives have followed a consistent pattern. They see the need to build capability but hesitate to initiate recruitment or make internal moves. In an uncertain environment, they default to the familiar wait-and-see.
The impact is clear. Hiring is on the up for middle managers, but senior roles are far less so. Boards are being asked to revisit the same plans repeatedly. Executives are holding back rather than taking measured risks. Roles that should be opened remain stalled, and the organisation loses time that it cannot recover.
Meanwhile, companies are ready with their budgets for next year. They know which people and skills they will need. They know where capability gaps sit. Business cases are written and agreed. Yet decisions remain parked.
What has become evident in our recent conversations is the growing impatience of Boards. They expect leadership teams to deliver the numbers but also expect them to equip the organisation for the future. They want clear decisions and action, not avoidance. They want measured risk-taking, not inertia. In a never-normal operating environment, with shifting consumer behaviour and constant cost pressure, delay carries its own risk.
I realise this may sound self-interested coming from an executive search partner, but my concern is wider. The CPG sector needs leaders who can act with conviction; hesitation now carries a real cost.
I observe that Boards are challenging leadership teams to act, to accelerate and to decide. They want pace and clarity. They know that uncertainty is not going away. They also know that waiting does not remove risk. It simply moves it into the future, often in a more damaging form.
For executive search firms, this creates a familiar paradox. Long periods of hesitation are followed by sudden bursts of activity, with an expectation of speed and access to senior talent. That is fair. But leadership teams need to be ready to initiate recruitment when the need emerges. Waiting for perfect clarity turns needs into lost opportunities.
My message to executives is straightforward. Boards will not remain patient forever. The current environment requires measured risk, not avoidance. Leaders who act with conviction now will strengthen their organisations. Those who hesitate may find that their window of opportunity has passed.
By: Herve Colleaux, Partner, Borderless Executive Search herve.colleaux@borderless.net
