Supporting SURREAL with the hire of their new Head of Growth

SURREAL is one of the UK’s most exciting challenger brands - a fast-scaling, high-repurchase DTC cereal business powered by bold creative, a standout product, and an increasingly omnichannel footprint. 

Having doubled revenue year-on-year and forecasting fast growth in the next three years, the brand was entering its next phase of scale. Subscriber numbers had grown from 3,000 to 30,000, while major retail listings in Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, and Ocado were fuelling new customer acquisition at pace. 

To protect momentum and build long-term profitability, SURREAL recognised the need for a commercially minded growth leader capable of shaping a sustainable acquisition and retention strategy. 

SURREAL needed someone who could operate end-to-end across the full growth engine — from rigorous performance optimisation to retention modelling and cross-channel expansion. The brief required a unique blend of skills: 

• Deep, hands-on performance marketing experience across Meta, Google and emerging channels 
• Experience building CRM and retention foundations 
• Commercial acumen to model growth scenarios and budget plans 
• Strategic maturity to support international scale-up

These hybrid profiles, sitting across performance, brand and retention, are rare. Recognising that finding this blend of creativity, data capability, and commercial rigour would require specialist expertise.  

SURREAL partnered with 3Search Executive for three core reasons: 

1. Deep specialism in DTC growth leadership, with proven success hiring Heads of Growth, Growth Directors, and CMOs across consumer brands. 
2. A strong track record at the intersection of performance, CRM, and brand, where the highest-impact growth operators sit. 
3. A network of operators from category-relevant DTC, challenger and health and wellness brands, ensuring speed and precision in the search.

Search Partner, Harrison Knowles, delivered a targeted retained search designed specifically for direct-to-consumer growth leadership. Harrison took the following steps to ensure the right appointment was made: 

• Partnered directly with Co-Founder Kit Gammell throughout the search 
• Built a clear mandate for the Head of Growth role aligned to commercial targets 
• Provided salary benchmarking and offer structuring guidance 
• Shared insight into DTC market trends and talent movement 
• Delivered a curated shortlist of leaders from top challenger brands 
• Supported structured assessment, ensuring pace and objectivity

The result was a highly qualified shortlist of best-in-market operators with proven DTC performance pedigree. 

SURREAL appointed a Head of Growth with deep experience across DTC acquisition, retention, and scaling. The new leader is now: 

• Driving SURREAL’s DTC channel 
• Scaling profitable subscriber growth 
• Building CRM and customer lifecycle foundations 
• Strengthening cross-channel performance 
• Supporting international market expansion

This hire places SURREAL in a strong position to achieve its growth goals in the next 3-5 years.