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HARRY’S COMMENTS: We are working with a confidential premium food gifting brand in their search for a Director of DTC Growth. This is a hybrid role, and you are required to be onsite 2–3 days/week.

This is a fractional (1099) / contract-to-hire position paying $5,000–$6,500/month (~$150K–$170K/year equivalent). Start date is July–August 2025 (flexible), and the role reports to the firm’s President / CEO.

About the Company

The client is a Metro Chicago-based specialty food brand with deep roots in the world of luxury wine. For decades, its founders have operated at the intersection of quality, tradition, and generosity—crafting fine wines, hosting intimate dinners for chefs and restaurateurs, and curating memorable tasting experiences for high-end customers.

The brand’s premium gifting arm began in that same dining room. Recipes were developed in the founder’s home kitchen and served to guests who appreciated that the sauces, biscotti, Bloody Mary mix, and small-batch condiments were not mass-market inventions—but deeply personal expressions of a culinary philosophy.

Today, the company sells those products online, in gift boxes that pair exceptional taste with elegant presentation. And while they’ve done little to market it, early DTC efforts have yielded six-figure results with strong repeat behavior and great customer feedback.

Management now feels that they have something real — and they’re ready to invest in scaling it. What they need is someone to lead the charge.

About the Role:

This is a rare chance to build something from the ground up—with real product, real momentum, and a real story. You’ll be the first person dedicated to growing this DTC business. And you’ll have executive support, budget, and creative control to do it.

But let’s be clear: this isn’t a turnkey role.

You’re not inheriting a clean dataset or a functioning CRM. There’s no existing funnel or dashboard. The current email system (Mailchimp) is being replaced with Klaviyo. The website is mid-rebuild. Most attribution data is limited to what Shopify provides, and the team — while experienced and fully bought in — is small and wearing multiple hats.

There are strong partners in place (an agency to help manage Meta and affiliate spend, a development team for the Shopify rebuild), but you’ll need to bring your own operating rhythm and decision logic to make things click.

If you’re the kind of person who thrives in ambiguity, loves to test, and doesn’t flinch when things don’t go to plan, you’ll have the freedom to do some of the best work of your career here. But if you’re expecting plug-and-play systems or a marketing ops team to set things up for you, this role won’t be a fit.

In the first 30 days, you’ll:

• Translate the brand’s story into a clear customer-facing narrative for paid, organic, and on-site use.
• Finalize Klaviyo segmentation and email flow buildout.
• Launch the first test campaigns using 3–5 creative personas and variable positioning angles.
• Oversee the relaunch of the Shopify storefront and validate the user journey from ad to checkout.
• Begin laying the foundation for video content, particularly on YouTube, where the founder is willing to be on camera and already has a compelling presence.

In the first 60–90 days, you’ll:

• Track and analyze campaign performance: Who’s clicking? Who’s converting? What stories are resonating?
• Refine AOV targets, landing page flows, and seasonal promotions based on early data.
• Lead creative development for holiday gifting (Q4), including catalog themes, email sequences, and conversion incentives.
• Assuring that the client has the requisite resources to fulfill orders.

By day 100, success looks like:

• A working customer acquisition funnel
• Clarity on which personas are working (and which aren’t)
• Baseline email list growth and segment health
• A scalable Q2–Q4 plan for 2026 based on real data

WHAT YOU’RE WALKING INTO

This is not a high-volume ecommerce machine. It’s a high-quality product with a great story—and a team that knows what they don’t know.

You’ll be stepping into a business where:

• The product margin is healthy, the gift experience is memorable, and the customers are responsive.
• Leadership has built and run large businesses before—but wants someone else to take the lead on this initiative.
• The team is intellectually honest and emotionally invested—but bandwidth is limited.
• The founder is present, supportive, and open-minded—but has high standards for care, brand presentation, and premium quality.

Most of all, you’ll walk into a business that knows it must grow its DTC business to thrive. This isn’t a nice-to-have side hustle. It’s the company’s next chapter.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS:

We’re looking for a resilient, creative, and resourceful operator who knows how to build systems while preserving soul. Someone who understands that storytelling isn’t fluff—and that acquisition is as much about emotional resonance as it is about CPM efficiency.

You’re right for this if you’ve:

• Launched or scaled a DTC brand from under $3M to meaningful revenue
• Translated high-concept brands into high-performing funnels
• Balanced data, storytelling, and customer intimacy to grow sustainably
• Operated in environments with limited data and evolving strategy—and made it work anyway

Bonus points if you’ve:

• Worked in food, beverage, luxury goods, or experience-based gifting
• Built YouTube or influencer campaigns from scratch
• Sold a physical product with both a premium price point and an emotional hook

WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS

The gifting market is noisy. Every major platform is crowded. Every aggregator has a gift guide. And Amazon is … Amazon. But this brand has something different: authenticity, aesthetic integrity, and real roots.

The product is ready. The story is waiting to be told. The infrastructure is taking shape. Now they need someone to bring it to life—one test, one message, one customer at a time.

If you’re a generalist with deep DTC instincts, if you believe that strategy should live in the spreadsheet and the story, and if you’re looking for a high-trust role where your work will actually matter—this is your shot.

Applications for this ecommerce job are being coordinated by Harry Joiner. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Harry for additional information that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.