Building the leadership teams behind the UK’s next breakout consumer brands.
Startups can be hard. Any founder worth their salt is passionate about what they're building - they live it, breathe it, and have probably taken on a fair amount of personal risk to make it happen.
In the early days, it's a small team working long hours for a payoff that might never come. Everyone wears several hats: winning customers, building the brand, scaling under pressure, raising the next round. The list goes on.
The reality is that very few employees will ever care about it as much as the founder does, which makes finding someone with the right mix of experience, energy, cultural fit, resilience and versatility imperative.
Hiring the right people early is the most important thing a startup will do. That's why Suma exists.
More on how I run a search for consumer startups, and the salary and equity benchmarks for the roles they hire most.
For founders
Startups move fast and can't afford a bad executive hire.
- Consumer founder myself. I know startups. I understand what it takes to run one, and I know the traits a candidate needs to have to succeed in one.
- Scrupulous vetting. I interview candidates the way an investor would, not the way a recruiter looking for a commission does.
- Consumer-native network. I already know the people who built the UK's top consumer brands.
For executives
You're likely already in a good role, and your reputation matters.
- Strict confidentiality. Your CV is never shared without your explicit agreement, and never with a company you haven't already said yes to.
- Vetted opportunities. I only represent startups with strong runway, good backing and a mission worth leaving a job for.
- Off-market roles. Senior positions at venture-backed consumer companies, most of which are never advertised on LinkedIn.
About me
I've sat on both sides of the table. I started my career as a recruiter, finding and assessing candidates, and then became a founder. I've raised over £8 million in equity funding, grown a team to more than 30 people, and built a consumer subscription business from scratch into a product in thousands of homes across the UK.
I understand the responsibility a founder carries to their investors, their team and their customers, and that the buck stops with them. In the early days, a senior hire can be the difference between making it and not.
Simon Cook