Carlos De Oglou is a Partner at Omera Partners and the firm’s longest-serving team member, having joined in the first year of operation alongside the founders. With a career that spans senior roles within iconic Australian retail brands and more than 25 years in retail and consumer executive search, Carlos brings a depth of market understanding that is genuinely rare in this field. He is recognised for appointing Chief Executives and senior leaders across Operations, Merchandise, Marketing, and Planning for ASX-listed, private, and global retail and consumer groups across Australia and the Asia-Pacific.
What are the biggest challenges your clients face in finding senior talent?
“Retail has always been challenging, but it has always presented great opportunity. At the executive level, deep sector experience, genuine leadership capability, and a committed work ethic are essential, but the real differentiator is something harder to measure: an innate ability to understand, excite, and delight customers. That is what separates good retail leaders from great ones.”
Which industries or functions do you specialise in?
“I specialise exclusively in retail executive search, partnering with ASX-listed and private retail groups to appoint senior leaders across the full executive suite: Chief Executive Officers, and senior leaders across Operations, Merchandise, Marketing, and Planning. My focus is finding the best talent to enable my clients to achieve their strategic outcomes, and after 25 years in this market, the depth of my network across Australian retail is something that simply cannot be replicated quickly.”
What types of appointments are you most proud of?
“The appointments I am proudest of are the ones that happen before the market even knows about them. My greatest skill is being an insightful listener, understanding where talented people want to take their careers, and matching that to opportunities before they are ever live in the market.”
A major ASX-listed retail group entering a significant transformation phase required a new Chief Executive Officer. The brief had not yet gone to market when Carlos, drawing on relationships built over many years, had already identified and nurtured a connection with exactly the right candidate. The appointment was made without a formal open search process, a direct result of the continuous talent mapping and relationship investment Carlos brings to his practice.
As Carlos reflects: “The best retail appointments rarely happen by accident. They happen because the relationships have been built long before anyone picks up the phone.”
How do you build trust with both clients and candidates?
“Always be honest. Respect clients and candidates equally and be responsive. Do not make people wait. Do what you say you are going to do, and if something takes longer than expected, let them know. It is straight forward in principle, but it is where a lot of people fall short.”
“Greatness is going the extra mile to find the absolute best in the market that meets our clients’ needs. It is about challenging our clients’ thinking and helping them be more open about what the right executive can bring to help them position themselves ahead of their competitors.”
What keeps you energised outside of work?
“I am up early every day and do my best thinking on a run or a walk before the world wakes up. I am a family-first person, deeply engaged in my children’s interests across sport, theatre, and their career aspirations. I still enter running events and plan to keep doing so for as long as I can, and I am always planning the next trip, whether somewhere in Australia or further afield.”
