This document tells you how your CV reads to the people who make hiring decisions: hiring managers and senior stakeholders deciding whether to take a conversation further.
It covers five things. What is landing on the first pass. What is strong about your career and how to lead with it. Where your positioning can be sharper. A section by section rewrite of your CV with the thinking annotated at every step. And your career architecture and value proposition.
At the end of this report you will find two CVs. A master CV built to the framework in this document, and a tailored version positioned for Head of Commercial roles at consumer-facing businesses. Both include prompts where additional context will sharpen the positioning further. The report gives you the thinking. The CVs give you something to work with immediately.
Your Profile names a specific target: Head of Commercial or Commercial Director at a consumer business. That is the right level of specificity for the next step. The difficulty is that the CV is not yet set up to deliver you into that conversation. Three things are working against you.
One. Your Profile opens with "commercially-minded Senior Manager", which is accurate but common at your level. The strongest thing about your career is that you already own a meaningful P&L and have moved deliberately across three consumer businesses. The summary does not yet lead with either.
Two. Your sector moves from FMCG to PE-backed to UK-listed consumer look scattered on the page. The logic is strong (deeper P&L ownership at each step) but the CV lets the reader guess it rather than stating it.
Three. Several of your best outcomes sit as responsibilities. "Led pricing strategy" describes the scope. "Delivered a margin expansion of 180 basis points across the category" describes the result. Both exist in your experience; only the first is on the page.
A strong CV does five things well. The matrix below shows what foundational, developing, and optimised look like for each, and where your current CV sits. At your seniority, every row should be at Optimised. The gap between where you are and where you should be is what this report addresses.
Ownership of a £30m+ category P&L in the current role, with accountability for pricing, margin, range, and promotional spend, is more commercial scope than most Senior Managers carry. A hiring manager reading that sees someone already running a meaningful piece of business. This is the single strongest asset on the CV for the Head of Commercial target, and it deserves to lead the Profile, not sit as the third bullet of the current role.
Consulting to FMCG to PE-backed consumer to UK-listed consumer is not a scattered history. It is a deliberate arc: the analytical foundation, then the category depth, then the pace and ambition of private ownership, then the rigour of institutional reporting. Read as a whole, it is exactly the profile a growing consumer business wants in its commercial leadership. The CV does not yet tell the reader that.
Two years in the graduate programme at a global strategy consultancy, with exposure to FTSE-listed clients across commercial and growth engagements, is an uncommon early credential for a commercial leader in consumer. It adds analytical discipline and a problem-solving default that reads well alongside the operator experience that follows. A hiring manager sees someone who can both build the plan and run the business.
Line management of three commercial analysts in the current role, plus the earlier promotion of a direct report into their own commercial manager seat, is the leadership signal a Head of Commercial search looks for. You have already shown you can hire, develop, and promote. The CV mentions team size but does not make the coaching outcomes visible. That is the easiest lift in this rewrite.
Your Profile opens with "commercially-minded Senior Manager with experience across consumer and retail". That is professional and accurate. It is also exactly what most Senior Managers at this stage write. The strongest thing about your career is that you already run a £30m+ category P&L and have progressed through three consumer businesses with increasing ownership at each step. When the Profile names that, a hiring manager immediately sees you as a candidate for the next role, not the current one. The rewrite in Section 03 shows what this looks like in practice.
The Key Achievements section sits above the career history. A reader sees "180bps margin expansion" and "£15m key account contract" as standalone bullets before they see the role, the P&L scope, or the negotiation context that made each one possible. When those achievements sit inside the relevant role, they land with much more weight. The recommended approach is to embed outcomes within roles and let a stronger Profile carry the headline positioning.
Bullets such as "led the annual commercial planning cycle" and "partnered with category managers on range decisions" tell a reader the scope, not the result. At your level, scope is assumed. The opportunity is to shift from "I was responsible for X" to "I delivered Y by doing X". You already do this well in several places (the margin expansion, the contract negotiation). It is about applying the same pattern consistently across every role.
The reader sees four employers across four sectors and has to construct the narrative themselves. Most do not. The CV needs to make the logic explicit: each move added a specific type of commercial capability (analytical depth at consulting, category depth at FMCG, pace and P&L at PE-backed, scale and rigour at the listed employer). The Career Architecture section of this report does that work; some of it should be signalled in the Profile as well.
Eleven years of commercial progression from a global consultancy through FMCG, PE-backed, and UK-listed consumer. A £30m+ category P&L. A 180bps margin expansion already delivered. A £15m key account contract negotiated and signed. Three direct reports developed and promoted. That is a credible Head of Commercial candidacy already, and all of the evidence is on the CV.
What follows is about restructuring the presentation so the strongest parts lead, the sector narrative is clear, and a hiring manager sees a leader in waiting in the first thirty seconds.
"The £30m P&L. The 180bps margin lift. The £15m account negotiation. The three commercial analysts hired and developed. Each one is a standalone asset for a Head of Commercial hire. Treated as a spine, they are the whole story."
Section 02 · Bottom LineMichael runs the same matrix, the same asset and issue cards, and the same Bottom Line across every CV. The rewrites, the career architecture, the LinkedIn work, and the two CVs that come next are written specifically for your career and your target.
Below is a section by section reconstruction of your CV. For each part I have explained what is landing when someone reads the current version, what needs to change, and how I would rewrite it, with annotations explaining the thinking behind every change.
"Commercially-minded Senior Manager with experience across consumer and retail businesses, including FMCG, private equity-backed brands, and UK-listed retail. Strong track record in commercial planning, pricing, business partnering, and category management. Comfortable partnering with senior stakeholders and developing high-performing teams. Driven by commercial outcomes and passionate about building brands that resonate with consumers."
"Commercial leader with eleven years across consumer, from a global strategy consultancy through FMCG, private-equity-backed, and UK-listed consumer businesses. Currently Senior Commercial Manager at a FTSE-listed consumer group, with ownership of a £30m+ category P&L, having delivered a 180bps margin expansion across the category and a £15m multi-year key account contract. Previously Commercial Manager at a PE-backed consumer brand through a period of rapid scaling. Three direct reports developed and promoted. Targeting Head of Commercial or Commercial Director at a consumer-facing business."
The original covers the right ground but stays general. "Commercially-minded", "strong track record", "passionate about brands" are all true. They could also describe most Senior Managers at this stage. They do not yet capture what is distinctive about your progression or your current scope.
The rewrite front-loads three things: (1) the deliberate career arc across four sector types, (2) the scale of P&L ownership and two specific outcomes (the margin lift and the key account contract), (3) the early leadership evidence through direct reports developed and promoted. These are the three strands that make the Head of Commercial candidacy credible; the summary should lead with them.
Notice what is removed: "Comfortable partnering with senior stakeholders" (assumed at your level), "passionate about building brands that resonate" (true but unfalsifiable, adds no signal), the broad "commercial planning, pricing, business partnering, and category management" list (better shown through the role evidence than claimed in the Profile). The rewrite sacrifices breadth to sharpen the point: P&L owner, deliberate sector mover, developing others.
Current role · approximately 22 months
Every bullet rebuilt to lead with outcome and put the scale of P&L ownership in the first line. The margin expansion and key account contract move here from the Key Achievements section at the top of the current CV.
Full annotation with the thinking behind every rewritten line — delivered as part of your report.
Previous role · approximately 36 months
Every bullet reshaped to show the pace and ambition of the PE-backed environment. The new product launch and the reporting framework build are reframed as outcomes with commercial impact, not process descriptions.
Full annotation with the thinking behind every rewritten line — delivered as part of your report.
Earlier role · approximately 48 months
At your current seniority, this role should be condensed and sharpened. The analytical depth and the promotion are the two signals that matter; everything else should work harder or come out.
Full annotation with the thinking behind every rewritten line — delivered as part of your report.
Graduate programme · approximately 24 months
At your current seniority, graduate and early-career content should be visible but brief. The consultancy brand, the client context, and the promotion are the three signals that still pull weight. Everything else can come out.
Full annotation with the thinking behind every rewritten line — delivered as part of your report.
The current Core Competencies section lists nine items, including "Commercial Acumen", "Stakeholder Management", and "Team Leadership". These are all true, and a reader can already see them demonstrated in your role descriptions. The recommendation is to replace this section with a compact Technical Skills grid that names specific tools and frameworks: Anaplan for planning, Power BI for reporting, Tableau for analytics, plus named commercial disciplines (pricing strategy, promotional ROI, category management, trade terms negotiation). Those specific terms are more useful to a hiring manager and more searchable on LinkedIn and applicant tracking systems.
The undergraduate degree from a Russell Group university is the right lead credential. The CIM Level 6 diploma adds value because it signals formal commercial development, which matters for anyone hiring you into a leadership role. The executive programme completed through the current employer reinforces the leadership readiness signal. Qualifications should appear in this order: degree first, CIM second, executive programme last. All on two to three lines, at the bottom of the CV.
The Key Achievements section shows good instincts about what matters. The structural recommendation is to fold those achievements into the role descriptions where they were earned, and let a stronger Professional Summary carry the headline positioning. This gives the CV a cleaner flow: Summary, career history, technical skills, education. A reader gets the big picture up front and then sees the evidence in context as they read through each role.
Length should be two pages for the targeted version and up to two and a half for the master CV at your seniority. Single column throughout, no sidebars, no graphics, no headshot. Clean, professional, content-led. Reverse chronological. Dates right-aligned. Months and years on current and most recent role, years only on the consulting graduate block.
One small item: interests, memberships, and personal sidelines at this level should be selective or absent. The document is a Senior Manager CV positioning for the next step; anything that does not support that read is noise.
Your career has a clear trajectory that your CV does not yet articulate. You started in strategy consulting, then chose consumer as your sector and have moved with intent through three consumer businesses, gaining deeper P&L ownership at each step. That is a compelling story when it is told deliberately.
When you walk into the final interview for a Head of Commercial role at a consumer business, the answer to "why you" is this:
Strategy-consulting foundation, category depth from global FMCG, pace and ambition from a PE-backed scale-up, and institutional rigour from a FTSE-listed consumer group. A £30m+ P&L already owned. Margin expansion already delivered. A commercial team already coached and developed. That combination is what a growing consumer business needs in its commercial leadership, and it is exactly what you are.
Every report names the career phases deliberately, writes the strategic arc, and delivers a value proposition you can use in interviews, applications, and recruiter conversations. Built around your career, not a template.
A recruiter who has your CV in front of them will look at your LinkedIn next. The profile needs to read as an independent document that reinforces the same positioning, not as a lighter version of the CV. Two things matter most: the headline and the About section.
"Senior Commercial Manager at [Employer]"
"Senior Commercial Manager · Consumer & Retail · £30m+ Category P&L · Strategy Consulting Origin · CIM"
The current headline defaults to job title and employer. That is what LinkedIn fills in for you. The rewritten version uses the 220-character limit deliberately: it names the role, the sector, the P&L scale, the consulting origin, and the qualification in one line. A recruiter scanning search results sees all five signals before they click through.
A full About section rewrite.
Four paragraphs, written to read as a short professional biography rather than a second CV. Opens with a one-line positioning statement, gives the current role with scale and scope, traces the sector arc through the three consumer businesses, names the credentials and the consulting origin, and closes with a statement of what you are open to.
Written in first person, sized for the LinkedIn About field, sharpened so a recruiter finishing the read knows exactly who you are, at what level, in what context, and how to start the conversation.
Full annotation explaining why each paragraph is structured the way it is — delivered as part of your report.
Both documents are written to the framework above and delivered as part of your CV Intelligence Report. Below is the specification for each.
A tightened, sector-targeted version. Designed to be sent when you are applying for the specific target named in the Profile.
Every report is built on Michael's recruiting framework, produced using an AI workflow trained on his methodology, and reviewed by Michael before it reaches you. The same framework you have just seen. Written for your career, your target, and your next step.
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