Los Angeles Ecommerce Jobs: Modern Gourmet Foods seeks a GM of Ecommerce (Costa Mesa, CA 92626)

That’s because MGF is a vertically integrated specialty foods gift packer — which is a bit different from being a gift basket company. MGF doesn’t simply assemble dozens of branded items into gift baskets. It offers more of a single branded gift solution. MGF’s business flows from agreements with companies like Hershey’s, Godiva, Starbucks, Corona and others.

With $40 million in sales, MGF sells its products through more than 85 retailers (60% of its volume is US-based). In addition to selling through major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond, the firm does a brisk international business. Founded in the 1990s, all of MGF’s senior execs have decades worth of experience in industries like CPG, confection, and giftware.

From a merchandising standpoint, major retailers love MGF because MGF specializes in developing and sourcing items that retailers don’t already have — and cannot get elsewhere. MGF’s product packaging is always amazing, and the firm is very flexible with its retailers.

But soon MGF will be launching a new consumer business called Thoughtfully.com, the premise of which is for all of its gifts from the world’s best suppliers to be curated by a team of experts. Thoughtfully won’t maintain a warehouse of pre-assembled gift baskets. To the contrary, Thoughtfully will offer consumers individually crafted gifts shipped direct from its facility in Los Angeles.

As MGF’s new Ecommerce GM, you will have the opportunity to build on the firm’s success as a gift industry leader. The new brand already has a Magento-based backbone in place, and its first product assortment is ready for a soft launch in April. What it needs now is a strong visionary leader to take it to the promised land.

Your job will involve growing Thoughtfully’s top- and bottom lines, you will have a major impact on defining the brand, influencing the product assortment, creating and implementing the marketing strategy. You will oversee every aspect of this promising ecommerce business from concept to delivery with quantifiable results.

Which explains why you’ll need to be a GREAT marketer to cut it in this role. MGF’s dugout is packed with .400 hitters in product design, product concepting, product sourcing, logistics, supply chain, and operations. What Thoughtfully.com really needs in this role is a digital marketing home run king. During your interviews with me and the clients, be ready to go deeeep with us on …

• Paid search
• Organic search
• Content marketing
• Public relations
• Relationship marketing
• Word-of-mouth, and
• … anything that might involve influencing consumer triggers in social and mobile.

I’m not going to get into it here, but the client shared with me some terrifically cool things they’ll be doing to embed social into the consumer’s checkout process to take full advantage of the EMOTIONAL PAYOFF that comes naturally when you build a fun and totally unique gift online for a friend or a loved one.

We’re not necessarily looking for a candidate who has been in massive organizations and only knows how to get things done in a command-and-control way. I’m looking for a scrappy, reality-based entrepreneur at heart who will bring an 80/20 orientation towards merchandising and marketing. I want someone who’s eager, hungry, and ready to own a business that can grow to $100 million someday. (Gifting is a HUGE category — so please don’t sluff off that 9-figure dream.)

1. Do your friends describe you as “someone who can’t get enough of the digital world and has an appetite and capability to change an industry?”
2. Do you have substantial DtC ecommerce experience (specifically in marketing), and can you execute on both the strategic and tactical level?
3. Can you provide us with specific (and reference checkable!) examples of how you have grown similar ecommerce businesses before?
4. Do your former bosses describe you as “a natural leader with phenomenal communication skills? Note: All leaders have followers. (If you can’t give us the names of a few of your followers, then we’d have to question your definition of leadership.) Be prepared for us to ask your followers “Where are you today — and what have you BUILT?”

MGF’s new Ecommerce GM will either CREATE or DESTROY massive value for the firm. That thought alone will unnerve you if you’re not right for this role. And it will turn you on totally if you are.

As always, my team and I spent several hours on the phone with Modern Gourmet Foods’ President exploring this opportunity and teasing out exactly what the new Director must do to “win” in the role. Yet for competitive reasons I’m not going to get too granular here.

I’m happy to discuss everything I’ve heard, seen, and researched about those things with qualified candidates. You definitely don’t want to apply without this intel, so let me hook you up.

Simply TEXT [your name + “Modern Gourmet Foods”] to me at (404) 281-2025. Or simply apply online below. Either way, I look forward to chatting with you!