3 Hiring Signals from Expo West 2026
- Sales and revenue leadership is the top priority. VP of Sales, National Accounts, and commercial operators with a proven retail strategy are the most competed-for hires on the floor.
- Fractional is a deliberate strategy, not a fallback. Brands are using fractional executives to keep the business moving during permanent searches, not as a compromise, but as an intentional people strategy.
- Org design conversations are replacing reactive backfills. Profitable brands aren't just filling open roles. They're thinking through where to hire next.
Every product trend that showed up at Expo West 2026, from creatine entering the mainstream, protein developing into a multidimensional product story, to functional categories appealing to mass consumers, points to the same core question: who will actually execute this? We spent the show engaging with brands to find out what the hiring landscape looks like right now.
Our team fanned out across the show: Dustin Cherry, Meredith Zlatkin, Anna Johnson, Lizzy Vela, Alana Edberg, Jena Lepkowski, and Eva Scofield, working the booths, the meeting rooms, and the insider events in between. Here's what we heard.
What is driving consumer brand hiring in 2026?
The hiring mood across the floor was the most positive we've seen in two years. Anna put it plainly: brands that have achieved profitability are seeing tremendous growth and picking back up on hiring. Companies were more open about where they need people and more ready to move when the right person surfaces.
Anna also flagged two specific patterns in her conversations: a strong emphasis on commercial, sales, and finance hires, and a growing interest in org design work, brands wanting to think through where to hire next, not just fill a role that's currently scoped. That second one matters. It means brands are operating with enough confidence to think ahead rather than just react.
Building teams to navigate change and growth was top of mind. Eva heard the same question from brand leaders across her conversations: is now a good time to hire? The answer was visible everywhere around them. The brands already in searches weren't waiting for the market to feel perfect. They were moving.
Alana noted a consistent theme: brands are more deliberate about when and who they hire. Strategic about scaling, not reactive to it. That's a shift in how fast-growing consumer brands approach people decisions, and it's showing up in the quality of the searches we're running. Better-defined roles. Sharper profiles. A clearer sense of what the business actually needs versus what it thinks it needs.
What roles are consumer brands hiring for in 2026?
The strategic hiring priorities we heard about track closely with what we're seeing in our own search activity day to day. Sales and revenue leadership is running well ahead of everything else. VP of Sales, National Accounts, commercial leaders who can put a retail strategy together and execute against it. The reason is straightforward: a revenue-producing hire has a clearer ROI story than most others, and in a capital-disciplined environment, that matters more than it did three years ago. Marketing and go-to-market leadership follows, particularly the people who can generate consumer demand and lead category strategy in a crowded functional space, where "better-for-you" is no longer a differentiator on its own.
Then operations. The people who can take a product from concept through manufacturing, onto the shelf, and through sell-through at retail. Those operators, the ones who have done the full run, are not easy to find. The brands that have them are pulling away.
When it comes to what founders and investors look for, Meredith confirmed that they seek experienced revenue leadership focused on efficiency and measurable ROI. Player-coach executives, her phrase, who can scale systems without layering in unnecessary overhead. For brands preparing for a capital raise or an exit, Meredith was clear: the quality of a brand's leadership and its organizational maturity are increasingly key factors in valuation and long-term success. The right operator in the right seat doesn't just move the business. She moves what the business is worth.
How are consumer brands using fractional and freelance hiring as a growth strategy?
Fractional and freelance hiring came up frequently, with a more sophisticated framing than in previous years. Jena mentioned that many of her conversations focused specifically on this. Lizzy's read matched: brands want to stay nimble as they grow, and flexible people strategy is a deliberate part of how they're doing that.
The shift worth noting is in how brands are framing the decision as an intentional people strategy. A brand that brings in a fractional VP of Sales to lead a retail push while a permanent search runs in parallel isn't compromising. It's making a smart move. The brands that benefit the most from fractional and freelance engagements treat them as a true part of their people and growth strategy: bringing in people with deep, specific experience for defined periods, keeping the business moving, and helping improve permanent hiring decisions because they've seen the function run well.
When a category is moving fast, execution is the differentiator.
The floor at Expo West 2026 had genuine momentum. Every brand there is watching the same trends. Spotting a trend is not a people strategy. Any brand can see creatine entering mainstream formats and decide to launch a product. The ones that win are the ones that find the people who have already done that work, who know the buyer on both sides of the aisle, who can write the claim, defend it, and sell through it at retail. They're out there. Finding them before the category gets crowded enough that every competitor is running the same search is the edge.
The brands we talked to at Expo West that had this figured out wore it visibly. Clear product story. Disciplined growth plan. Teams structured around proven operators, not generalists who will figure it out. Investors and acquirers know it when they see it. Strong leadership has always made brands worth backing. Right now, it's also making them worth buying.
We work with brands growing in these categories and with people who want to grow their careers within them. It's why Expo West matters to us, and why the conversations we have there are different from anyone else's.
Want the full picture from the show? Read the trends that are driving these hiring decisions.
Read: What We Saw at Expo West 2026: The Trends Shaping Food, Beverage, and Brand Teams
ForceBrands has spent nearly 20 years inside the consumer brand ecosystem: food, beverage, wellness, beauty, pet, and cannabis. Our work spans executive search, direct hire recruitment, freelance and fractional contract staffing, and advisory guidance. If you're growing in these categories and considering who belongs on your team next, we'd like to be part of that conversation.
