ADVISORY
Senior Advisory for FMCG & Consumer-Led Businesses
Independent strategic judgement, decision support, and implementation of proprietary tools — on a retainer or project basis.
Multi-Sector Pattern Recognition. Applied Faster.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Cowan & Associates works across FMCG, consumer, retail, and related sectors. However, our real value isn’t in our diverse core domains.
It’s our pattern recognition. Our use of generative AI hasn’t just accelerated this — it’s given our clients better decision-making power, at scale.
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 judgement where they have the greatest commercial impact.
Retail
Digital & AI
Marketing Technology
Private Equity / M&A
FOUNDERS STORY
Deep Domain Expertise. Independent Strategic Judgement.
Michael H. Cowan spent the first two decades of his career inside global FMCG and consumer businesses — Procter & Gamble, Warner Lambert, Diageo, and PepsiCo — working across the full management spectrum of strategy, 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 judgement 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 judgement — the standard Michael first envisaged — to enterprise and mid-market FMCG and consumer businesses, helping CEOs, leadership teams, and PE-backed founders make better business decisions.
Michael H. Cowan
Experience and systems knowledge built inside many of the world’s leading consumer businesses:
Our five core FMCG advisory areas:
How We Work
Every advisory relationship starts with the same three questions: where is value being created, where is it leaking, and what needs to change first. We work at the intersection of brand strategy, commercial performance, organisational capability, and AI-enabled operating systems — and we turn the answer into a plan the business can actually execute, not another deck.
Not more theory.
Better judgement. Better outcomes.
“Michael Cowan is one of the best operators I’ve worked with. He quickly understands the situation, adapts to the business, and applies decisive commercial judgement with real impact.”
- Senior Executive at Fortune 50 FMCG Company
Independent by Nature. Strong Network by Design.
PARTNER NETWORK
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.
Join Our Network of Senior Advisors.
BECOME AN ASSOCIATE
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.
If that's you:
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 project-to-project, without the overhead of a large firm.
