ArchPoint welcomes Matt Cook to its growing Consulting team. Matt has over 20 years of experience in the CPG industry, holding executive and management roles at leading companies like P&G, PepsiCo, and Revlon.
Leveraging his expertise in commercialization strategy, sales leadership, P&L management, retail execution, go-to-market strategies, broker & partner relations, customer & brand management, and trade spending, Matt now brings his business-focused strategies and leadership to ArchPoint, helping organizations achieve their strategic goals.
Tell me about your career journey. How did you end up in CPG?
I started my career in active-duty military service before returning to business school, where I worked for the head of the IT department at the University of Iowa. In school, I thought I’d go into consulting with a big firm like Deloitte, but then Procter & Gamble made me an offer, and that path took off.
I worked at Procter & Gamble, and eventually, I joined Jesse, who at the time was the VP of Strategic Alliances at WebVan, the first online grocer, where one of my assigned alliances was with PepsiCo. After Webvan, I joined PepsiCo, and worked on the second-largest account desk, carbonated soft drinks at Wal-Mart, right behind Frito-Lay, Walmart. I was part of a team of five managing this business, which quickly taught me the complexities of handling such a major account. Walmart represented around +40% of the total portfolio at the time, so its impact on the company’s overall business was huge, and that role gave me a steep learning curve. I stayed on that business for almost three years.
Another significant role I had was running Gatorade sales — a $3.5 billion portfolio with a $1 billion trade budget. In both roles, the focus was always on exceeding the plan, pushing to go above and beyond what was expected from the company.
In your decade-plus at PepsiCo working with major brands, what was one of your most memorable experiences?
When I was working with Gatorade, we launched a new team called the Customer Direct Team. This group, mostly made up of young athletes fresh out of school, connected directly with colleges, universities, high schools, clubs, gyms, ice rinks, and more. Consumers who started using Gatorade at the ‘point of sweat’ — right when they were actively exerting themselves — were 3.5 times more likely to stick with the brand as they got older. So, with this new team, we focused on reaching them early, during their high school and college years, those critical ‘formative years.’
The team tracked consumer habits to identify our heavy, moderate, and light users. Our goal was to understand who Gatorade was really for: was it for someone casually watching football on the couch, or the person training for a half marathon? The Customer Direct Team’s insights were key in shaping our approach to engage consumers at those high-impact moments.
How did you come up with the idea for the Customer Direct Team?
To give you some background, the Gatorade brand got its start in the ’70s at the University of Florida. A scientist there created it specifically to help players fuel their bodies in the intense heat of ‘the Swamp’ — a nickname for their famously hot and humid stadium. Gatorade was developed with the football team in mind, during those hot, sweaty games when staying hydrated to the point of sweat was crucial. The product was initially sold under a company called Stokely – Van Camps, back when Gatorade came in a glass bottle. It quickly took off with young athletes who embraced the idea of fueling their bodies for peak performance.
When PepsiCo purchased Gatorade, the brand had shifted away from its original mission. On my team, we focused on bringing it back to that ‘point of sweat’ concept. PepsiCo is skilled at commercializing and expanding big brands, but they sometimes lack the patience for smaller brands, not always willing to nurture them through infancy to consumer adoption. The key is to introduce the product early in the consumer’s lifecycle and let it grow with them over time. With Gatorade, however, Pepsi saw the value in our team taking the time to reestablish its connection with consumers early and build brand loyalty that would grow over time.
When you look at the CPG landscape today, what do you consider fundamental to successful go-to-market or commercialization strategy?
It starts with aligning around agility. This means staying flexible to shifts in consumer behavior and customer plans. As a CPG company, we didn’t always fit neatly into our customers’ plans, so being agile enough to adapt to their framework is crucial. A successful go-to-market strategy also requires resilience and a strong focus on execution. I’m a big fan of execution — it’s something I emphasize constantly. There’s a book I often refer to, called Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, that I’ve shared with my sales teams.
I always consider both efficiency and effectiveness. For me, effectiveness is about getting the job done in a way that meets customer needs, aligns with consumer targets, and achieves our end goals. It’s less about my personal performance and more about how well we’re delivering for our target audience.
Ultimately, the key question is: Are we achieving our goals in both an efficient and effective way?
How do commercial leaders balance long-term brand building with the need for quick wins in today’s market?
That’s a tough one because you do need some quick wins, but those wins should be tailwinds, not headwinds — tailwinds that support brand growth in the right way. You want wins that drive sustainable growth, not just short-term gains that might end up being inefficient or even harmful for the brand in the long run. It also depends on who the quick win is for. Are you aiming for a win with the customer, or is it more about motivating your own team? A quick win for your team might be delivering something highly profitable, even if it’s not a high-volume mover. But if you’re focused on a quick win for the customer, it might be something that improves their profit margins. So, it really comes down to clearly defining your quick win and carefully considering the audience when making that decision.
In CPG, collaboration between marketing, sales, and product teams is critical. How do you encourage alignment between these functions?
Working collaboratively across teams was the most important thing to actually getting tasks accomplished. It’s about understanding where everyone is at and each team’s plans and deliverables. Marketing might have specific goals tied to their AOP (annual operating plan), while sales, finance, and operations have their own priorities. To achieve my sales objectives, I first need to understand what each of these teams is trying to accomplish. From there, we can find a common thread that aligns our principles, allowing us to work together effectively, even though we may sometimes have competing goals.
It’s crucial to bring everyone along from the beginning, starting with the concept or initial idea, so it feels like each team has ownership. That way, I’m not just pulling everyone along; instead, everyone is part of the idea’s origin and sees it through to completion from their perspective. My tendency is to move quickly, because I’ve likely to have already seen what the answer is going and I’m ready to get there. But it’s so important to slow down and bring others along with you.
In such a fast-moving market, how do you approach innovation while ensuring consumers are ready to embrace it?
There’s always time for innovation. It’s the lifeblood of the industry and a brand. Take Gatorade as an example of successful innovation. Gatorade is known for quenching thirst, but when you think about a full workout, you also consider carb-loading pre-workout and protein recovery. How do you help someone carb-load before intense activity and support muscle recovery afterward? Gatorade took this concept beyond hydration, focusing on how to support peak performance before, during, and after a workout. Products like Muscle Milk, which PepsiCo acquired, and Gatorade’s own Prime and Recover lines capture the entire performance cycle, providing hydration and nutrition to support the body at every stage of activity.
But with such rapid innovation, there’s a real concern about leaving some consumers behind. Some people still prefer traditional ways, just like there are still people buying Revlon even as newer brands emerge. Some consumers still write checks and go to the bank, rather than using debit cards, ATMs, or digital payments like Venmo or PayPal. The rapid pace of innovation can sometimes outpace what these consumers are ready for. Take Webvan, for example: it was offering online grocery shopping back when we were still on dial-up, before Wi-Fi was widely available. Imagine trying to navigate sixty product pages and complete your grocery shopping on a slow, dial-up connection — it simply couldn’t keep up.
That’s a good example of how go-to-market innovation can sometimes move too quickly for the infrastructure or the consumer readiness of the time. So, while we push forward, we have to consider the pace and make sure we’re not outpacing the people we’re trying to serve.
What’s a common pitfall brands should work to avoid?
It’s important not to simply always follow our competitors’ actions and behaviors. For example, if a competitor is gaining short-term share by deep discounting, they’re likely scraping up consumers who aren’t very loyal anyway. They’re not moving brand loyalists but brand switchers back and forth between brands. In reality, these consumers are just chasing the cheapest option. We could follow them down this path, but it would only erode our profit margins, taking our loyal Gatorade and Pepsi customers — those who genuinely like our brands — down to the lowest possible pricing.
Instead, we can stay true to our brand loyalists by focusing on winning, delighting, and surprising them with our products, execution, and innovation. Rather than competing on price alone, we aim to deliver what truly matters to these consumers, so we don’t end up at the lowest common denominator alongside every discount-driven competitor.
What core principles have consistently guided you across your career?
First, lead with vision and purpose — providing clear direction and inspiring others with a shared sense of purpose. Embracing accountability and ownership is also key, both by modeling accountability myself while empowering my team to take ownership. Transparency and open communication are essential too, along with prioritizing people’s development and leading by example. And, of course, something as simple as celebrating successes and learning from failures can make a big difference.
For accountability and ownership, I incorporate these into each individual’s performance plan, tying them into their OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures). This creates a common thread that we can track across people and levels, ensuring alignment throughout the organization. When it comes to transparency, I focus on being open and honest with cross-functional teams about my goals. You can’t go it alone; many try, but without genuine collaboration, people often end up falling into traps. It may not sound like rocket science, but building strong relationships and fostering collaboration is critical for success.