How Beyond Meat Found a Fractional Performance Marketing Leadership with Deep CPG and Retail Media Experience

The Challenge:

Beyond Meat, one of the world's most recognized plant protein companies, came to ForceBrands with an urgent need: their performance marketing function required immediate stabilization and specialized leadership. With a national retail footprint across Walmart, Amazon, and Instacart, the cost of a gap was not theoretical. It was running in real time across every paid media channel supporting their retail distribution.

The team had a clear capability gap and needed someone who could step in quickly, bring strategic structure to their paid media efforts, and drive measurable results across their retail distribution network without the timeline or overhead of a full-time executive search.

But this was not a typical performance marketing role. Retail media in CPG requires a specific combination of platform expertise, retail knowledge, and an understanding of how consumer brands operate across channels.

The fractional model was right. Finding the right fractional leader was harder. The role came with constraints that eliminated most of the market immediately. Five days a week on-site. Deep hands-on experience with Walmart Connect, Instacart Ads, and Amazon. Proven execution across Meta, Google, and TikTok.

Most importantly, CPG experience was non-negotiable. Beyond Meat needed someone who understood the relationship between paid media, retail distribution, and consumer demand. Generic performance marketing experience would not be enough.

What the Search Required:

The ForceBrands’ team knew that success would come down to more than finding someone with the right platforms listed on a resume. The search required identifying a leader who had already operated inside the realities of a consumer brand and understood how retail media fits into the broader commercial picture.

ForceBrands targeted professionals already operating in freelance and contract capacities, filtered by proximity to El Segundo, and evaluated candidates across both brand-side and agency-side backgrounds.

The team prioritized three things: direct retail media network experience, demonstrated CPG fluency, and the ability to move between strategy and hands-on execution.

Five strong candidates were presented in short order.

The Right Fit:

The placed candidate matched every requirement. His CPG background and direct retail media network experience matched Beyond Meat's core requirements. Additionally, his communication style resonated with the team from the first conversation and he committed to the on-site requirement without hesitation.

Presented on November 18th, he was onboarded and started just after the new year.

The speed mattered, but the precision of the match mattered more. Beyond Meat gained a fractional leader with the category knowledge, retail media expertise, and operating style required to step into a complex CPG environment and contribute immediately.