ABOUT US
Senior Advisory for FMCG, Retail, and Consumer-Led Businesses
Independent strategic judgment & advisory across Growth, Offramps, and Capability — when the right decision matters most.
PATTERN RECOGNITION
Multi-Sector Expertise. Applied Judgment.
Cowan & Associates works across FMCG, retail, consumer, and related sectors. Our value isn't simply breadth of domain experience. It's the ability to recognise patterns across them — and apply that experience to the decision in front of the client.
Generative AI has accelerated that capability further — helping us connect information, test assumptions, and sharpen judgment & decision-making with greater speed and depth.
In consumer-led businesses, the same issues repeat: overcomplicated strategy, misaligned teams, wasted spend, weak execution. At C&A, we see them early and focus our analysis and judgment where they have the greatest impact.
FMCG / CPG
Retail & eCommerce
Consumer Durables
Food & Beverages
Digital & AI
Consumer Experiences
Marketing Technology
Private Equity / M&A
FOUNDER’S STORY
Michael H Cowan spent the first two decades of his career inside global FMCG and consumer marketing giants — Procter & Gamble, Warner Lambert, Diageo, PepsiCo, and NielsenIQ — working across the full management spectrum of strategy, insights, brand, commercial, shopper, digital, leadership, and organisational capability.
The pattern he kept running into was always the same: businesses had increasingly more data, but not the true insight-gathering skills and processes to make better business decisions.
The proof of concept came in 2004, when he was asked by PepsiCo to investigate and mitigate their CWD system market-exposure risk created by EU accession across Central and Eastern Europe — a genuinely difficult commercial problem, with huge P&L exposure on the line. Getting the fundamentals right, rather than accepting the status quo, delivered over $5M in net savings to the Pepsi system.
The real turning point came in his next mandate — a brief stint consulting with NielsenIQ (then AC Nielsen) in Ireland. It was there that the gap became obvious: clients weren't short on data — they were short on someone willing to apply independent judgment and deep domain expertise to it, not just collect it and hand it back as a report.
In 2006, that insight ignited what would eventually become Cowan & Associates.
Today, Cowan & Associates brings that same systemisation rigour, domain expertise, and independent judgment — the standard Michael first envisaged — to enterprise and mid-market FMCG, retail, and other consumer-led businesses, helping CEOs, CMOs, leadership teams, and PE-backed founders make better business decisions.
Deep Domain Experience. Independent Strategic Judgment.
Michael H. Cowan
Experience, systems knowledge, and judgment built inside many of the world’s leading consumer marketing businesses:
OUR APPROACH
Make Better Business Decisions
Every C&A engagement starts with a clear commercial question and is tackled through a proprietary methodology built from decades of operating experience across consumer businesses. Whether the objective is Growth, Offramps, or Capability, we interrogate the brief, establish the evidence, define what success looks like, and apply the right C&A frameworks to reach a practical, decision-ready outcome with a clear path to implementation.
Not more theory.
Better judgment. Better outcomes.
Every client mandate follows our 6-step process:
01 — Prosecute the Brief
03 — Run the Data & Benchmarking
02 — Reconfirm Desired Outcome & Scorecard
04 — Deploy C&A Methodology & Frameworks
05 — Formulate Judgment & Solutions
06 — Recommendations & Execution Plan
“Michael Cowan is one of the best brand strategists I’ve worked with. He quickly understands the nuances, adapts to the business, and applies decisive commercial judgement with real impact.”
- Senior Executive at Fortune 50 FMCG Company
PARTNER NETWORK
Independent by Nature. Strong Network by Design.
When it comes to advisory, most practices overbuild. We don’t.
Cowan & Associates operates as an independent advisory firm, with our managing partner always staying close to the client, the brief, and the commercial outcomes that matter. When additional capability is required, we bring in trusted operators and specialist partners with deep, complementary experience.
No consultancy bloat. No unnecessary layers. Just the right capability, applied only where it creates enterprise value.
BECOME AN ASSOCIATE
Join Our Network of Senior Advisors.
Cowan & Associates stays independent by design — but no single person covers every specialism a modern FMCG business needs. When an engagement calls for deeper expertise in retail execution, marketing technology, AI adoption, or private equity and M&A, we bring in trusted associates: senior operators with real, hands-on experience, not generalist consultants.
We're always open to expanding that network with people who share the same standard — commercially grounded, independent-minded, allergic to consulting theatre.
What we’re looking for:
Deep, specific expertise in one of our core areas (FMCG/Consumer, Retail, Digital & AI, Marketing Technology, or Private Equity/M&A).
A track record of operating inside real businesses, not just advising them.
Comfortable working on a project-to-project basis, as the client mandate requires.
THE STRATEGIC BRIEFING
The signals, shifts, and ideas shaping consumer markets
Short, sharp reads on FMCG, consumer behaviour, category disruption and commercial growth — curated from 30+ years of working inside consumer-led businesses.
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