Suppliers rarely lose shelf over product. They lose it over people.
Fill rates, program execution, account leadership: that is where positions at The Home Depot, Lowe's, and commercial distributors like HD Supply, GMS, and SRS are won and lost. We place the commercial talent that keeps suppliers on the shelf, through Loom Haven Advisors, our owned executive search firm.
Commercial talent decides supplier survival.
The scorecard says it first
Fill rate slips. Chargebacks climb. A program stalls in execution. The retailer's scorecard flags it quarters before the relationship shows strain, and the root cause is usually the person running the account.
Line reviews are won by people
The deck matters. The national account leader who knows the category math, the reset calendar, and what the buyer is actually measured on matters more. Retailers keep suppliers they trust to execute.
A mis-hire costs more than a salary
In big-box, the wrong commercial hire is not a quiet failure. It is a missed reset, a downgraded scorecard, and a weaker seat at the next line review. Positions lost this way take years to win back.
The hardest profile to reach is the operator who has sat inside the retailer. That is our network, because that is where we came from.
The commercial seats that hold the shelf.
Retained and contingent search for the roles that decide how a supplier performs inside a big-box relationship.
National account managers & directors
The person who owns the retailer or distributor relationship: the line review, the program calendar, the scorecard, the number.
VP Sales & channel sales leadership
Leaders who can run big-box, pro, and distribution as three different businesses, because they are.
Sales operations
Forecasting, program administration, chargeback recovery, deduction management. The machinery behind the account.
Category & program management
Talent that speaks the merchant's language: resets, planograms, program economics, promotional execution.
Executives from inside the retailer
Operators and merchants with big-box experience on either side of the table. The profiles suppliers value most and struggle hardest to reach.
We graded suppliers from the buying side.
The Managing Director evaluated, onboarded, and managed suppliers from inside the retailer. He operated a ~$1B commercial B2B distribution P&L at The Home Depot and led human resources for a $3B North American subsidiary. We know which talent profiles survive a big-box relationship because we watched them succeed and fail from the other side of the table.
Loom Haven Advisors. A NovusMarc Company.
Real search infrastructure, not a solo recruiter: dedicated research, structured processes, and retained and contingent models across executive and specialized roles, extended by vetted staffing partners for volume and specialty go-to-market hiring. The search firm is owned, so the network, the standards, and the accountability sit inside the group.
Tell us the seat. We will tell you the profile.
Twenty minutes on the role you are hiring, or the one you suspect is underpowered. Either way, we will tell you what we would look for in your next commercial hire.
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