Carter Powis leads the firm’s Consumer, Retail, and Marketing Officer practices in Canada and during his 20+ years with the firm, he has worked on more than 400 senior executive assignments for many of the world’s most respected brands in the consumer, retail, foodservice, hospitality, travel/leisure, sports, and technology industries.
A breadth of consumer, retail and foodservice experience
- Prior to joining Spencer Stuart, Carter was president and chief operating officer of Targetnet, a small, privately held company that specialized in building strong permission-based relationships with consumers through the use of innovative Internet advertising technology.
- Earlier, Carter was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he spent five years serving a number of consumer, retail and foodservice clients in North America. Carter also acted as a faculty member for many of McKinsey’s training programs and as a recruiter for the company’s analyst and associate recruiting programs.
- He spent four years in marketing with PepsiCo’s Pizza Hut division — two years in Toronto followed by two years in Wichita, Kansas, as director of international marketing responsible for Latin America — and three years in brand management with Colgate-Palmolive. A business case he wrote about his experiences at Colgate-Palmolive is one of the top 40 all-time best-selling business cases at The Case Centre, an organization dedicated to advancing the case method of teaching worldwide.
- Carter is also a frequent speaker on the topic of career counseling for audiences from university students to C-level functional leaders and company Presidents/CEOs. He has been a guest lecturer at York University and a lecturer at Wilfrid Laurier University in the area of marketing.
Carter earned an M.B.A. with distinction from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a Bachelor of Business Administration with honours from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada.