Marketing Director
Q&A with Cat Costigan: Milk & More
Introduction to Milk & More
Milk & More’s purpose is to make sustainable living simpler for their customers, by selecting the finest eco-friendly groceries and delivering them to doorsteps in the most sustainable way.
Their returnable, reusable glass bottles of milk really seal their legacy, but there’s so much more to their offering than that. The sweetest breakfast treats, as well as pantry and household essentials, are their pride and glory, and there’s a special history behind each one.
With roots stretching back over 50 years, Milk & More has been a part of communities all over Britain. Their mission is to continue both the milkman legacy and its expansion into a modern, sustainable doorstep delivery service.
What was your recruitment challenge?
Milk & More became a part of the Müller Group in 2016, so our internal recruitment team has been built around the needs of our B2B offering. When the requirement for a Chief Customer Officer presented itself, we knew we lacked the experience within a B2C capacity to hire this internally. So, we looked externally to recruitment agencies with B2C expertise, but also proven experience within the executive level leadership space and recruitment of the Chief Customer Officer role specifically.
As with any business, we were under some time pressure to find the right hire. But what was more important to us than pace was the quality of the candidate. We took some time to understand what we needed as a business, what the right profile and skill set looked like in a candidate, and therefore what level of candidate we needed to bring in to meet our business goals.
What made you approach / work with Intelligent People?
In the process of researching the profile of a good Chief Customer Officer, we googled ‘Chief Customer Officer’ and Intelligent People came up top of the Google search results. On going through to the Intelligent People website, I found it to be easy to navigate and it showcased their recruitment expertise in this area.
I decided to proceed with Intelligent People due to the easy onboarding experience including the website, and how responsive the team where to my initial query. I found Chris and the team to be extremely flexible, wanting to make the process work for everyone. The whole onboarding process was very collaborative, and we were working well in partnership with each other.
What services did Intelligent People provide?
Chris took the time to build a deep understanding of the brief: the personal profile we were looking for, the skills we needed, the impact of this role within the business, and any specific requirements or constraints. This included market mapping, candidate profiling, skills mapping and salary benchmarking.
From this research stage, we moved to advertising on job boards, headhunting and using Intelligent People’s internal network of commercial leaders. Chris provided a thorough list of candidates for the shortlist, all of these from IP’s personal network or headhunting methods – the job advert didn’t seem to provide candidates with the right skill set for this role.
We were working with Intelligent People on a retained basis, and this worked well for us as we were able to utilise Intelligent People’s network and connections with the Commercial Leadership space to our advantage.
Would you recommend working with Intelligent People?
Yes. Our search was successful, and we have appointed a Chief Customer Officer to the business. They have been in the position for a few months now, completed probation and are doing well.
I would absolutely recommend Intelligent People to other businesses. In fact, I’ve already told several people about them when they needed help with recruiting at various levels. If I ever need assistance with finding B2C executives or other important commercial leadership roles, I will happily turn to their recruitment agency again.
Case studies: read about other C-level placements that we’ve made
Chief of Growth and Strategy at Chapter One
Chief Marketing Officer at Goodfellow
I would absolutely recommend Intelligent People to other businesses. In fact, I've already told several people about them when they needed help with recruiting at various levels. If I ever need assistance with finding B2C executives or other important commercial leadership roles, I will happily turn to their recruitment agency again.
