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Finding Specialist RDQ Leadership for a Global FMCG Business
A multinational FMCG business retained Miramar to appoint an RDQ Director in the US, a search shaped as much by geography as by the technical brief.
THE CHALLENGE
The position had evolved as a result of the previous incumbent being promoted and the vacancy fell in the middle of a wider transformation of the client's RDQ (Research, Development & Quality) function, which meant the hire carried more weight than a routine backfill.
The brief itself was narrow by design. The client needed someone with direct, hands-on experience in a specific category of product development, and adjacent FMCG experience elsewhere in the sector wasn't going to be close enough to satisfy that requirement. Beyond the technical fit, the role demanded a leader who could operate at two levels simultaneously: strategic enough to shape the direction of the function, but equally comfortable running plant-level R&D and quality day to day, with a genuine interest in the end consumer rather than a purely technical view of the product.
Location added a further layer of difficulty. The role was based more than two hours from the nearest major US city, and the client was clear from the outset that this wasn't something they were prepared to negotiate on. Candidates with the right category experience weren't necessarily candidates who could realistically relocate to, or already lived within reach of, that part of the country which narrowed an already specific market considerably.
THE SOLUTION
Miramar mapped talent across the whole of North America against a single, non-negotiable filter: direct experience in the client's specific product category, whether current or prior. That category-first approach ruled many otherwise strong FMCG candidates early in the process, which kept the search focused. Equally, a candidate’s ability to be based in the location was critical.
Every candidate went through a Partner-led assessment, testing specifically for the balance between strategic thinking and day-to-day execution that the role demanded, alongside the technical depth the client had been explicit about from the start. Candidates were also briefed on the challenges and opportunities ahead of them within the client's broader reinvigoration of its global R&D function, so the strongest ones arrived at later conversations already engaged with the scale of what the business was building.
An initial shortlist of benchmark profiles went to the client within two weeks of the search launching. Their feedback on those early profiles let the client sharpen requirements they hadn't been able to fully articulate at the outset, and gave Miramar a clearer read on where the market's true boundaries sat.
THE RESULT
Six candidates were shortlisted, with two presented to the client as finalists and one clear preferred candidate emerging from that stage. The search closed in just under three months, despite running through the summer vacation period, when both candidate and client availability typically slow a process down considerably. The offer was accepted, and the candidate started within two weeks.
As one stakeholder on the client side put it: "I'd like to thank you for handling the process in such an agile and effective way, taking care of every step along the way with us and paying close attention to the candidate engagement. We would welcome the opportunity to explore potential opportunities in the future to work with you and the rest of the team."
The impact
This appointment gives the client a leader who can operate at both ends of the RDQ function at once, shaping category-level strategy while staying close enough to plant operations to hold quality and product development to the same standard. With over 15 years across R&D, quality and manufacturing management , the candidate brings the category-specific product development experience that sat at the centre of this brief, along with a Lean Six Sigma background that lines up naturally with the client's continuous improvement priorities.
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