Our Expertise
Constantly changing behaviours, new technologies and increasingly blurred sector boundaries are reshaping how consumer businesses compete. Growth requires leaders who can understand the customer, adapt quickly and connect brand, product, commercial strategy, digital capability and operations.
We help clients find and develop the leadership they need to navigate change, build capability and deliver lasting value.
Sectors
B2C markets are increasingly connected. Technology, adjacent behaviours and new routes to market are reshaping how brands engage customers, build loyalty and grow.
Our sector expertise gives us a clear view of where leadership talent sits, how capabilities transfer across consumer industries, and when looking beyond the obvious competitor set can create an advantage.
Our Integrated Services
Our Search, Interim and Advisory experts work together closely, bringing continuity, context and accurate judgement to every stage of the relationship. That means faster, better-informed decisions, the right expertise when you need it, and leadership solutions that are tailored to your unique needs.
View serviceOur Executive Search Services
More than your standard Executive Search. We combine market insight with rigorous Assessment to deliver leaders who power growth during transformation.
View serviceOur Interim Leadership Services
Essenta places Interim leadership at pace to protect momentum through transformation and change. Expert Interim management delivered with lasting impact.
View serviceOur Leadership Advisory Services
Essenta builds stronger leadership through senior-led Advisory, assessment, and succession planning. Integrated consulting that creates a lasting advantage.
View serviceThe Essenta Difference
We combine deep functional expertise, global B2C networks and rigorous Leadership Assessment to help clients make better-informed leadership decisions.
We go deeper than a standard Executive Search process, evaluating potential, context and culture so you can appoint leaders who perform today and succeed tomorrow.
We work closely with leadership teams, boards and investors, bringing an informed point of view while remaining focused on the specific needs of the business.
Our approach goes beyond experience and track record to understand capability, leadership style, potential and cultural alignment.
Our client relationships extend beyond individual transactions. We support clients as businesses evolve, leadership teams change and new capability becomes necessary.
Case Studies
The impact of a leadership decision goes far beyond the appointment. See how we’ve helped clients strengthen teams, navigate transformation and build the capability for what came next.
Related experts
Jessica Osborn
Project Coordinator, Consumer
B2C
London
Annabelle Wood
Project Coordinator, Consumer
B2C
London
Cara Sawyer
Senior Associate, Consumer
B2C
London
Emily Little
Principal, Consumer
B2C
New York
Ewan Peaston
Consultant, Consumer
B2C
London
Isobel Stevenson
Consultant, Consumer
B2C
London
Jiarong Guo
Consultant, Consumer
B2C
London
Katriona Windsor
Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Lily Stripe
Associate, Consumer
B2C
London
Nanda Veldink
Senior Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Natasha Lewis
Consultant, Consumer
B2C
New York
Sebastien Cavanagh
Senior Partner, Consumer
B2C
London
Jessica is a Project Coordinator in Essenta’s B2C team, supporting partners across Executive Search delivery and business development. She is involved at every stage of an assignment, managing client expectations, coordinating communication and keeping searches moving, from the initial briefing through to completion.
Day to day, that means organizing candidate and client interviews, scheduling update calls and preparing detailed candidate profiles, so partners and clients go into every meeting fully informed. She also coordinates prospective client and business development meetings, along with travel for the partners she supports.
Jessica has built broad experience across customer-facing, office support and PA roles. It started on a fruit and vegetable stall at Borough Market, then into student accommodation management, supporting international students and handling bookings, payments and office organization. She later became PA to the south regional manager at Fleurets, the UK’s leading leisure property specialist.
I believe an exceptional client experience comes from clear communication, thoughtful organization and always staying one step ahead. Starting out on a market stall taught me to connect easily with people, and I bring that same warmth to every client and candidate I work with.
Executive Search has a lot of moving parts: candidates, clients, calendars and time zones. Annabelle keeps them all in step. As a Project Coordinator in Essenta’s B2C team, she supports senior colleagues and clients by coordinating projects and the information and logistics that keep a search running smoothly.
Annabelle brings over 10 years of experience in a support capacity within professional services, and has built a strong reputation for being organized, proactive, meticulous, and responsive.
Clients should feel they’re working with a partner who is trusted, professional and genuinely personable. For me, the small details make the biggest difference: replying promptly, anticipating needs, and keeping communication clear, thoughtful and consistent. When every interaction feels seamless, clients feel looked after and confident that things are in good hands. I want them to know that the team behind them is invested in their success.
A Senior Associate within Essenta’s B2C practice, supporting PE-backed, and publicly listed businesses across the US and Europe. Cara’s consumer experience is broad, with a notable focus on CPG – including health and beauty, food and beverage, alongside sports, lifestyle, fashion, and apparel.
Prior to joining Essenta, Cara worked in an independent recruitment business. This was where she developed a keen, detail-oriented approach and ultimately learned to work at pace across multiple searches.
I believe great leadership is about bringing clarity to complexity, building trust, and creating an environment where people can do their best work. A strong strategy and good results matter, but so does how you bring people with you along the way.
I bring the same approach to Executive Search: taking the time to understand people, what motivates them, and what they could bring to an organization. The goal is to connect exceptional people with businesses where they can make a meaningful impact.
Fashion, retail, and the wider consumer world are what Emily knows best. She has built her career recruiting C-suite and senior executives for publicly listed and private equity-backed businesses, as well as founder-owned brands.
At Essenta, she leads every stage of a search, from defining the role and mapping the market to assessing and benchmarking talent, guiding clients through to a successful hire. Her clients range from founder-led start-ups and private equity-backed portfolio companies to established public brands.
Emily’s driven by finding creative answers to complex talent challenges, giving clients and candidates an exceptional experience, and building Essenta’s reputation as the firm of choice – both to work with and to work for.
Emily joined Essenta from Herbert Mines Associates and before that, she was at Egon Zehnder, first in London and then supporting the Dallas office, mostly on retail, apparel and luxury Executive Search. Throughout her career, she has enjoyed working with both established and disruptive businesses on their senior leadership needs.
Her early career was in financial services, focused on retail and consumer, and in retail itself as a merchant.
Each search is a chance to make a real difference, both to a business and to the people in it. The right leader can transform an organization and the lives of its people, and I approach every mandate with that sense of possibility. Add a naturally competitive streak, and the work is both rewarding and genuinely enjoyable.
I’ve long believed that culture is a critical driver of performance. When placing senior leaders, I give cultural fit equal weight with technical capability instead of focusing on skills alone, and in my experience that typically means longer tenures and greater success in the role.
Ewan advises consumer brands on senior leadership appointments as part of Essenta’s B2C team, working across consumer packaged goods, health and beauty, fashion and apparel, and sports and lifestyle, in particular.
His work goes well beyond Executive Search. Ewan also leads market insight, talent mapping, and succession planning projects. Having partnered with clients across a wide range of functional disciplines, he sees how consumer businesses build and structure their leadership teams, end to end.
Before joining Essenta, Ewan spent three years at Fortune Hill Executive Search, specializing in commercial and marketing within the European consumer market. He started out as a researcher, moved into account management and ultimately led the delivery teams, so he knows the work from the ground up.
The best leadership appointments come from understanding not just what a candidate has achieved, but how they achieved it: how they’ve built teams, navigated change and made difficult decisions under pressure. Consumer businesses move fast, and the leaders who succeed in them are rarely the ones who look best on paper alone. Our job is to get past that and find the person who will genuinely thrive in the context our clients are asking them to lead in.
Thirteen years in search, across the UK, US and APAC, have taught Isobel to recognize a business at its most critical turning point. She partners with ambitious companies as they grow or transform, working as a key member within Essenta’s B2C team. Isobel runs the delivery of searches for listed, investor-backed and privately held organizations across a broad range of consumer industries and services.
Isobel joined Essenta in 2026. She began her career in London, in the Financial Officers practices at Eton Bridge and Blackwood, then spent four years working overseas before returning to the UK.
No leader is one trait wide, so no assessment should be either. I aim to bring together the tangible, quantifiable side of a leader’s skills and the more qualitative, behavioural insights, so our clients get a true picture of the impact that person could have in their organization.
Jiarong helps consumer businesses find the leaders who can take them across borders. She advises on senior leadership appointments in international markets, with a particular focus on fashion, beauty, sports, lifestyle, and consumer goods. Her clients include global brands, private equity-backed businesses and founder-led companies across Europe and Asia, all growing, transforming, or expanding internationally.
Cross-border search is Jiarong’s specialism. She helps international businesses build leadership capability in Asia, and partners with Asian companies as they expand into Europe and other global markets. Her work spans CEO, president and general management appointments, as well as senior commercial, brand, retail and people leadership roles.
Jiarong works closely with clients to understand not only the experience a role requires, but the business ambition, leadership dynamics and cultural context behind it. This helps her identify and engage leaders who can handle complexity, work effectively across cultures and make a real impact as businesses evolve.
Jiarong has more than a decade of experience in Executive Search, where she advised clients across private equity, financial services and a range of other industries.
Her route into search has been a less direct one. A mathematics graduate, she began her career in banking, then moved into executive education as a programme manager at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. There, her interest in business, leadership and the people behind organizations grew, and it eventually led her into Executive Search.
Our work takes more than industry knowledge and a feel for how markets are moving. It takes humanity too: empathy, integrity, openness and a genuine curiosity about people. That matters even more across cultures. Great leadership starts with understanding people deeply, what drives them and what makes them different. Give people with different perspectives and backgrounds the space to be at their best, and that’s often where something extraordinary happens.
Scaling, transforming, going digital: Katriona works with consumer businesses at the moments when leadership matters most. As a Partner at Essenta, she works with boards, investors and management teams across private equity-backed, growth equity and publicly listed businesses, finding exceptional leaders for ambitious organizations in complex, high-growth and transformational environments.
Her work spans consumer, consumer technology and consumer services, with a keen focus on leadership teams driving scale, digital growth and value creation. She advises on executive and non-executive appointments, bringing deep sector knowledge and a rigorous understanding of what sustains performance. Katriona’s approach is pragmatic. She takes time to understand the business, its context and the leadership it needs for its next phase.
Before joining Essenta, Katriona spent 17 years in specialist, boutique environments, building deep expertise in Executive Search and the consumer sector. Most recently she spent three years at Founders Keepers, the Executive Search arm of Founders Forum, advising investor-backed businesses on board appointments. Before that, she spent 14 years at The Talent Business, where she led the European Executive Search business, working with consumer and creative-led organizations on senior leadership appointments.
She began her career in client services at Havas and McCann Erickson, which gave her an early grounding in consumer brands and the commercial and creative dynamics that shape them. That mix of sector knowledge and search experience has underpinned her work with boards, investors and management teams ever since.
The best leadership appointments come from understanding what a business will need in the future, as well as what it needs today. I take the time to sink my teeth into an organization’s context, ambitions and culture, and I’m candid with both clients and candidates about what it will take to succeed. The aim is always a thoughtful, well-informed appointment that works for the business and the individual over the long term.
Lily is an Associate in Essenta’s B2B practice, working across the full arc of a search, from mapping the market and identifying talent to engaging and assessing candidates. She supports Executive Search projects in fashion, beauty, consumer goods and lifestyle for global brands, private equity-backed businesses and founder-led companies across Europe and the US.
She works closely with clients and colleagues to understand what each business needs, what the leadership role demands and the context around it, then turns that into targeted search strategies and useful candidate insights.
Lily joined Essenta in 2025 as a graduate, and began her Executive Search journey from there, and has since built expertise across the international consumer markets.
Search is both analytical and deeply human. Every business has its own identity, ambitions and culture, so finding the right leader means understanding how a person’s values, perspective and approach will fit that context. I’m curious about what motivates people, how they think and what they bring to a team, and I try to bring a creative, rounded view to each assignment. For me, the right appointment is about creating the conditions for both the individual and the organization to thrive.
As a Senior Partner at Essenta, Nanda co-leads its global B2C practice, advising listed, privately owned and private equity-backed businesses on senior leadership appointments and broader talent matters. Her work spans health and beauty, CPG and FMCG, retail, lifestyle, luxury and fashion, across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.
Nanda has lived and worked in eight countries, including Singapore, the Middle East and the UK, and now divides her time between London and New York. The result is a culturally fluent, international perspective.
Clients value how closely Nanda listens, how well she understands their context and culture, and the care and credibility with which she represents their brand in the market. She also draws on the full breadth of Essenta’s unified talent offering to meet their evolving leadership needs and help build stronger, future-ready organizations.
Nanda has more than 15 years’ experience in Executive Search, and she specializes in complex, cross-border consumer appointments and has a strong record of challenging conventional talent assumptions to find diverse and unexpected leaders. Her international experience helps her read local nuance within a global context, and advise clients with both cultural sensitivity and commercial rigour.
The best outcomes are co-created, and the real work is listening with curiosity to understand the business, its culture and context, where it wants to go and what leadership it will need to get there. That takes being personally invested, agile and creative, whether we’re shaping a role before it formally exists, benchmarking the market, assessing leadership or running an unconventional search.
I want clients to experience us as a trusted extension of their team: honest in our advice, committed to quality and able to represent their brand with real conviction. Understanding both the immediate need and where the organization is heading means we can find not just an impressive candidate, but the right leaders to close critical gaps and deliver its ambitions.
Natasha brings Essenta’s international network to the US market. A Consultant in the B2C practice, she is based in New York, where she focuses on senior leadership appointments across CPG, luxury, beauty, retail and technology-enabled businesses.
She works across the full search process, from gathering market intelligence and identifying talent to assessing candidates, managing client relationships and supporting decisions. Natasha also weaves Leadership Assessment and Advisory into her searches, giving clients a fuller view of the talent landscape and the capabilities their business needs to succeed.
Her understanding of where talent is heading in her industries helps her turn business context into a clear leadership profile, a tailored search strategy and a differentiated shortlist.
Natasha studied Economics at University College London and joined Essenta in 2021, she has built her Executive Search expertise in London before having relocated to New York in 2026.
A job description only tells you part of the story. The more closely you understand an industry and a company’s ambitions, challenges and culture, the better you can spot the leadership it needs. I bring that thinking to every conversation, helping clients think more broadly about the market and giving candidates a clear, honest view of the opportunity. I particularly enjoy the moments when talent gets to shape a role and make a real difference to the business.
Seb has spent more than 25 years helping consumer organizations build their boards and management teams. A member of Essenta’s Senior Leadership team, he co-heads its Consumer divisions and is responsible for building the firm’s reputation across consumer industries in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific.
He is also closely involved in developing Essenta’s broader offering, including Assessment, Advisory, Interim and referencing. Seb’s time is split equally between publicly listed and private capital-backed businesses, which gives him a clear sense of what each requires, separately or together.
Having worked globally for most of his career, Seb has supported organizations and investors with both domestic and international growth ambitions. His clients range from public companies to private equity-backed businesses building towards secondary, tertiary and IPO capital events.
A strong leader creates followership. A healthy balance of EQ and IQ builds the trust and loyalty at the heart of high-performing teams, and finding and qualifying those teams is what motivates me. That’s why executive referencing is now so focused on those qualities, particularly when growth and transformation sit at the heart of a business’s strategy.
Tell us what the business needs to achieve. We will give you an honest read on the leadership challenge in front of you, and how you should approach it.
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