Isla Délice is a private equity-backed, high-growth halal food business operating in an expanding FMCG category, with significant opportunities for innovation and growth.
Having entered the UK market in 2025, the business was already generating around £5m in UK revenues and has ambitious plans to scale rapidly through organic growth and acquisition, with ambition to become the category leader.
The Brief
Allexo were retained using our Executive Search solution to appoint a Sales Director to lead the commercial development of Isla Délice's UK grocery business.
The appointment was a critical hire for the next stage of the company's growth, with responsibility for customer relationships, commercial negotiations, pricing, margins and profitable growth across the grocery channel.
The objective was to identify a highly driven and entrepreneurial sales leader who could combine strategic commercial thinking with a hands-on approach to building the business, securing new distribution, growing existing customers and identifying new opportunities.
The successful candidate needed significant FMCG grocery experience, strong relationships across the Top 4 Grocery customers and a proven track record of delivering profitable growth. Experience owning customer P&Ls, strong commercial negotiation skills and the ability to operate autonomously within a high-growth business were also key requirements.
The Process & Results
Following a detailed briefing with the Managing Director UK, Allexo conducted a targeted search, leveraging our FMCG network and proactive headhunting approach to identify senior sales professionals with the right combination of grocery expertise, commercial capability and entrepreneurial mindset.
We engaged candidates with proven experience in:
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Managing strategic relationships with Top 4 Grocery customers
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Delivering revenue, margin and distribution growth
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Leading commercial negotiations and managing customer profitability
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Developing customer growth plans and securing new business
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Operating within entrepreneurial, challenger and growth-stage FMCG businesses
Rather than relying solely on traditional National Account Management experience, the search focused on identifying an individual capable of taking genuine ownership of the grocery channel and helping shape the commercial strategy as the business scales.
Allexo successfully completed the search and appointed an accomplished FMCG sales leader with the grocery, commercial and entrepreneurial experience required to lead the next phase of Isla Délice's UK growth.
