Although MBA grads are more likely to seek employment in the consulting, finance, health care, and tech industries, many recruiting options exist for those seeking employment in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. Employment reports from top MBA programs for 2023 noted that MBA students were recruited to CPG companies including The Kraft Heinz Company, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch InBev, SC Johnson, Estée Lauder, Land O’Lakes, Campbell Soup Company, and Nike. There are also a few “fresh” options hiring in the CPG space such as HelloFresh and Beyond Meat.
Professionals from a variety of backgrounds—including finance, consulting, marketing, engineering, operations, and sales—can all make a successful transition into the CPG industry post-MBA. Traditionally, many CPG recruiting opportunities have been in product management, which is really a general management role. Product managers are responsible for the profit and loss of the brand as well as everything pertaining to the product including the supply chain, manufacturing, marketing, advertising, consumer insights, and sales. In many ways, product management is the ultimate MBA goal, as product managers must bring their knowledge of all functional business areas into their work.
Here are several tips to keep in mind if you plan to transition into CPG post-MBA:
Build on your prior expertise and fill the gaps with an MBA.
- Finance: Someone with a finance background can leverage their finance skills to manage budgets while using an MBA to develop stronger operations and marketing knowledge. Leveraging business school to build supply chain and marketing experience will help round out a finance professional’s skill set and give them the general management background that they need in a product or brand management role. Several of my clients who worked in finance have utilized an MBA to excel in brand management. If you have finance experience in the CPG industry, you already have excellent prospects stemming from your CPG experience. Joining an MBA program’s marketing club and participating in specialized CPG-focused conferences or courses also will help finance professionals make a successful transition to CPG.
- Consulting: A professional with consulting knowledge can leverage their strategic background while deepening their CPG industry knowledge and marketing skills through an MBA. If you are currently working in consulting, try to work on a project in the CPG space prior to your MBA studies to gain some early insight into the challenges facing the CPG industry.
- Engineering: Someone with an engineering background can leverage their operations knowledge while using an MBA to gain marketing and finance expertise. A candidate with strong quantitative skills and an understanding of the manufacturing process has great “raw” materials in their own background that will be transferrable to the CPG industry.
- Marketing: Look for ways to understand marketing before and during your MBA studies. Northwestern Kellogg is known for its annual Super Bowl Ad Review, which is hosted by the Kellogg Marketing Club under the direction of Professors Timothy Calkins and Derek Rucker. Using a more strategic framework in evaluating an ad’s effectiveness will give you some insight into the challenges marketers face when investing in advertising campaigns.
Look for MBA programs with strong CPG recruiting relationships and culture.
Northwestern Kellogg
As a Kellogg graduate, I can’t help but think of the school as an option for candidates who are interested in CPG, as I attended the program in the absolute golden days of CPG recruiting. So many of Kellogg’s emeritus marketing professors including Philip Kotler and Lou Stern are marketing legends. Current professors at Kellogg continue this tradition of excellence: Professor Angela Lee is well known for her research on consumer motivation, and Professor Alexander Chernev teaches the “Strategic Brand Management” course, which would be highly beneficial for anyone considering a career in brand management. In addition, Kellogg was ranked the top MBA program in marketing by U.S. News & World Report in the publication’s 2023–2024 Best Business Schools list.
Although Kellogg currently sends more graduates to other industries including consulting and tech, the school continues to have an outstanding marketing department and offers other resources to prepare students for successful careers in the CPG industry. Courses in such areas as omnichannel experience strategies, customer loyalty, leading product organizations, and even ethnographic customer insights will give budding marketers a full tool kit to excel in the CPG industry. Another bonus for Kellogg regarding marketing is that there are so many Kellogg alumni in the top ranks of CPG leadership, which is invaluable in building relationships in the industry.
In Kellogg’s Class of 2023 employment report, the school noted that 7% of the full-time class worked in the CPG industry post-MBA (about 30 students), so you’ll have plenty of classmates to support you in your CPG career journey. Firms hiring Kellogg MBAs included HelloFresh, Nike, and Procter & Gamble.
Harvard Business School (HBS)
Although many people think of HBS for general management, product management is a general management role in running all the elements that contribute to the profit and loss for a particular brand. HBS’s case method provides effective training to excel in the CPG industry because students discuss the real-world problems companies face from a variety of functions. Professor John Deighton, the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, has been a widely referenced authority on consumer behavior and digital and direct marketing. Dr. Jill Avery, a senior lecturer of business administration and the C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator in marketing at HBS, brings practical experience in brand management, as she previously worked in CPG brand management for Gillette, Braun, Sam Adams, and AT&T.
In HBS’s Class of 2023 employment report, the school reported that 4% of the class worked in CPG, which equates to almost 30 students. In addition, 10% of the class (about 70 students) reported working in the marketing function among the more than 700 students seeking employment. Companies including Clorox, Johnson & Johnson, Instacart, Kraft Heinz, L’Oreal, Nike, and SCiFi Foods all hired recent HBS grads.
Michigan Ross
In its Class of 2023 employment report, Ross reported that roughly 5% of the class worked in CPG, which represents about 20 students. And about 14% of the class reported working in the marketing function, totaling about 50 students. Some of the companies hiring Ross MBA graduates into marketing roles included PepsiCo, Nike, Procter & Gamble, Clorox, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Heinz, Molson Coors, and SC Johnson. Experiential marketing learning experiences through Ross’s “Multidisciplinary Action Projects” (MAP) course projects provide hands-on learning opportunities. Marketing courses such as “Strategic Market Planning” and “Strategic Brand Management,” along with the very active Michigan Marketing Club, all give Ross students the opportunity to build strong marketing careers.
Columbia Business School (CBS)
Although CBS might not be at the top of the percentage charts for sending students into marketing roles—with just around 3% of the Class of 2023 working in the CPG industry and 11% working in the marketing function, as reported in the school’s employment report—CBS’s large class size ensures you will still find like-minded peers. CBS grads were recruited to marketing powerhouses including Anheuser-Busch InBev and Unilever as well as other firms including Estée Lauder and HelloFresh. CBS has more than 25 full-time and 50 adjunct professors who bring real-world marketing experience to the classroom and teach courses in such diverse areas as design thinking, customer management, and customer-driven product optimization.
UCLA Anderson
Anderson’s Parker Career Management Center provides helpful marketing guidance to students seeking CPG careers. In its Class of 2022 employment report, Anderson reported that about 9% of the class worked in CPG, which equates to about 20 students, and 26% of the class, or about 60 students, worked in the marketing or sales function. Some of the companies hiring students into marketing roles included Nike, Adidas, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, Clorox, and Estée Lauder. With specializations in Brand Management and Marketing Analytics, marketing-focused projects for Applied Management Research projects, and centers including the Morrison Center for Marketing and Data Analytics, students have many opportunities to build marketing knowledge through an Anderson MBA.
Consider program resources and other experiential learning opportunities.
- Texas McCombs: McCombs offers a concentration in Brand & Product Management to help students make a successful transition to the CPG industry.
- Duke Fuqua: The Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum (FCCP) provides students with the opportunity to solve real-world problems and gain practical marketing experience through completing an FCCP project.
- Wharton: Wharton provides a robust number of courses in marketing as well as the “Strategic Marketing Simulation” course to help students gain real-world experience. Wharton also provides a Marketing and Operations Management major together with the school’s Operations, Information and Decisions department. Wharton’s Class of 2023 employment report stated that about 11% of the class accepted positions in the product/brand marketing and product marketing functions. However, a higher number of those approximately 76 students worked in the tech industry instead of CPG, as only roughly 1% of the Class of 2023 reported working in the CPG industry.
As you research business schools, remember to look at the details—including employment reports for both full-time and internship recruiting. Note the number of people in the class seeking employment as well as the percentages so you understand how many peers you will have in the class with similar interests. For example, while U.S. News & World Report ranked Stanford as the #4 MBA program for marketing in the publication’s 2023–2024 Best Business Schools list, Stanford’s Class of 2023 employment report noted that only 3% of the 256 graduates who were seeking employment worked in the CPG industry; that’s only about eight people. However, Stanford did send 16% of the class seeking employment (about 41 people) into the marketing/sales function in 2023.
Another way to evaluate the robustness of an MBA program’s marketing offerings is to look at the activity in the school’s marketing club. Is the club’s website active? Does the club host annual conferences to facilitate networking and information sharing? Pay attention to the details to ensure that you find the right program to help you successfully transition to CPG.
Our Stratus team has lots of experience helping applicants plan their transition to a new industry, such as CPG, through an MBA degree. We are available to start a conversation about your profile through a free consultation. Schedule yours here!