The Discipline of Scale for Modern CPG Leaders
I’m Kamini Natarajan, a CMO and growth operator with 15+ years of experience scaling consumer brands across wellness, beauty, supplements, skincare, and functional CPG.
I’ve led brand transformation and growth at companies navigating complexity from DTC and subscription scale to Amazon, retail expansion, and omnichannel integration partnering closely with founders, executive teams, and boards.
This site reflects my perspective from the operator’s seat: what actually works, what breaks at scale, and the discipline required to build durable growth.
Modern marketing didn’t become complex because leaders asked for it. It became complex because growth created more channels, more data, and more decisions.
Acronyms, dashboards, and tools aren’t the problem. Misalignment is. When teams optimize locally by channel, metric, or function clarity erodes and momentum slows.
At the executive level, the question isn’t which metric matters most.
It’s whether brand, growth, and operations are reinforcing the same outcome.
Sustainable growth doesn’t come from mastering jargon. It comes from disciplined alignment around what actually moves the business forward.
Marketing isn’t about creating noise. It’s about creating coherence.
At scale, marketing becomes the connective tissue between product, customer, and performance. It translates strategy into experience, aligns brand promise with delivery, and ensures growth efforts compound rather than compete.
In complex CPG environments, strong marketing doesn’t just drive awareness. It shapes demand, informs decision-making, and reinforces trust across every touchpoint, from first exposure to long-term loyalty.
When marketing is grounded in clarity and discipline, it becomes a force multiplier, supporting sustainable growth rather than chasing short-term wins.
Featured Thinking
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What’s Shaping CPG Growth in 2026
Why discipline matters more than trends Over the past year, I’ve spent time inside CPG and wellness brands at very different points in their growth journeys. Some are scaling quickly. Others are trying to regain momentum after years of expansion. Almost all of them are wrestling with the same reality. Too many things are changing
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Bridging the AI Adoption Gap
Strategies for CMOs in the CPG Industry Understanding the Reluctance A recent Gartner survey reveals that 27% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) have limited or no adoption of generative AI within their teams. In contrast, high-performing organizations are leading the way, with 84% utilizing generative AI for creative development and 52% for strategy formulation. This
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The Transformative Power of Generous Leadership
In my several years of leadership experience, I’ve come to understand that the most profound impact we can have as leaders doesn’t stem from strategic planning or financial acumen – though these are certainly important. Instead, it comes from something far more fundamental: generosity of spirit. Today, I want to share my perspectives on how
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New Website, Aggressive Revenue Growth
I worked for a company that was in the process of sourcing the best ecommerce platform for their online site. I identified and shortlisted few ecommerce platforms and in the end we all agreed on Shopify Plus as the best fit for this business. Once we completed the entire re-platforming process, my goal was to generate revenue
Lessons from the Operator’s Seat:
Growth at scale is shaped less by best practices and more by real tradeoffs, constraints, and imperfect information.
These pieces share anonymized lessons from building and scaling consumer brands across ecommerce, retail, and omnichannel environments. They focus on what actually works, what breaks under pressure, and where discipline matters most.
Retention That Scales
Designing repeat behavior, not just recovery
Sustainable Growth
Aligning acquisition with long-term value
Brand at Scale
Maintaining clarity as complexity grows
Ecommerce as an Operating System
Building systems that compound across channels