tml Partners are delighted to have partnered with the team at Hovis to source their new CMO

Hovis Ltd is a distinguished British company with a baking legacy spanning over 130 years and delivering more than a million loaves of bread every day throughout the UK and Ireland. Owned by private equity firm Endless LLP, they employ 2,800 people in eight bakeries, one flour mill and 3 distribution centres across the UK.

Hovis is famous for its traditional British bread, crafted with extra wheat germ and celebrated for its inherent health benefits. The business takes great pride in the taste and quality across its portfolio of bakery products.

The Challenge

The UK bakery category is dynamic yet challenging with a tough trading environment, fierce competition from brands and rising pressure from own-label products. Despite the challenges, it is a category with great potential for growth across various areas.

The board at Hovis recognised the need to bring in a marketing leader at board level, reporting into CEO Jon Jenkins, to realise Hovis’ full potential.

The brief was to source an experienced marketing leader with a proven track record of building FMCG brands, who could shape the future of Hovis, elevate marketing capabilities within the business and ultimately drive growth through increased brand penetration and consumer engagement.

The successful candidate was to embody a challenger mindset and bring exceptional strategic and creative thinking skills to brand communications to craft brilliant, distinctive communication campaigns alongside agency partners and to shape and drive a comprehensive and creative innovation pipeline to delight consumers.

The Solution

Emma Calder, Head of the Consumer practice at tml Partners, worked closely with Jon Jenkins, CEO, and the UK Recruitment team to develop a deep understanding of Hovis as a business, Endless’ future ambitions and the key requirements in terms of skill set and behaviours that they were looking to bring into the business to help shape the future of the brand.

Utilising an extensive network of senior marketing professionals across the FMCG landscape, a shortlist was presented to Jon within 6 weeks of the brief. The Hovis team then conducted a comprehensive, three stage interview process. This resulted in Mark Brown, who came highly recommended by agencies and several sources within the tml Partners community, being offered the CMO position.

Mark brings a wealth of FMCG experience from working across multiple family brands within companies such as Kerry Foods and more recently General Mills.

Mark commented: “Just secured my next career move working with the brilliant Emma Calder at tml. An excellently managed process with great communication and support throughout. Thanks Emma!”

Jon Jenkins, CEO of Hovis, added: “I was delighted with both the outcome and conduct of the CMO recruitment with tml Partners as our resourcing partner. From a process perspective, it was a very time efficient as Emma fitted in with my schedule to arrange updates or get sign-off for key next steps and we were left with three outstanding candidates at offer stage who could all of delivered against the brief. Ultimately, we chose Mark as we had confidence in him both through the interview process but also through the thoroughness of the referencing that tml secured on our behalf. tml have been excellent partners.”

About tml Partners: Specialist Headhunters for Commercial Roles

tml Partners are specialists in Executive Search with access to a global network of commercial, marketing, communications, brand, product and digital leaders. Our team work with businesses ranging from fast-growth challenger brands to blue-chip organisations to develop their in-house teams.

Whether you’re seeking interim or permanent solutions, our team has the expertise to support across various sectors and locations.

Emma Calder is currently partnering with high growth FMCG and health and wellness clients to support the best-in-class development of in-house commercial teams, working across both permanent and interim briefs.

To learn how tml Partners can help you, get in touch with Emma: