Who is i34g ?

i34g is your Trusted Strategic Advisor and executional expert, providing Sales & Marketing depth of expertise to enable your team to accelerate the growth of your business and portfolio. Our growth solutions are pragmatic, rapid, cost-effective and customized to match the unique needs of your business needs.

Kevin Lake

President & Founder

Kevin is a seasoned Sales & Marketing and Business professional with a diverse breadth & depth of experience in the North American Fast-Moving Consumer Packaged goods industry. He is a highly versatile proven performer, innovator, revenue generator and profitable growth driver.   His experience spans both Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B), Branded & Private Label portfolio management.

Kevin has led multi-functional teams for over 30 years with many leading manufacturers within the CPG Food & Beverage sector as well as having experience within a major Canadian Retailer and Tire & Automotive industry player. He has worked in collaboration with retailers across all channels within Canada and the United States in the creation of game-changing initiatives.

He has developed and implemented transformational organizational capabilities in Marketing, Innovation, Category Management, Consumer Insights & Analytics and Shopper Marketing including the training & development of large-scale teams.

Diverse Industry Experience

  • Marketing Strategy and Brand-building (B2C & B2B, Retail & Foodservice)

  • Innovation (Branded and Private Label)

  • Customer Acquisition, Sales Strategic Growth Planning, Trade-spending Re-engineering

  • Category Management, Insights & Analytics

  • Building Shopper Marketing Capabilities

  • Marketing & Sales Team Leadership

  • Sales & Marketing Training & Development

Expertise and Roles

Companies & brands that I have held Sales & Marketing Leadership roles within & Brand portfolio responsibility include the following:

  • Kraft Foods

  • Pepsico

  • ConAgra Foods

  • MARS Petcare

  • Purity Life/ SunOpta

  • Maple Leaf Consumer Foods

  • Irving Consumer Products

  • ARYZTA (Aspire Bakeries)

  • Sailun Tire Americas

  • Sobeys

Career Experience

Testimonials

Brand Strategist & Innovator

“Kevin is a passionate marketer and builder of brands. He is consistently strategic in his thinking and has undertaken a great deal of successful product innovation over his years in CPG. He also contributes positively to corporate culture.”

Earlene Worrall - Strategy Consultant, Partner IPSOS Healthcare Advisory

Inspiring Coach & Team Leader

“I reported directly to Kevin in one of his Strategic Marketing Leadership roles in CPG. Kevin is a strategic and innovative marketing leader and a true champion for his team. He was always supportive in encouraging the managers who reported to him to apply our creativity and brand-building strategies on the portfolio. Together, we broke new ground in media, TV network partnerships, innovation and consumer promotions. His work to orchestrate the signing the National Hockey League as a partner for our business unit, energized the Sales Team like we had never seen before and the marketing we built to campaign against it drove significant business results.   I would highly recommend Kevin as a dynamic, strategic leader who is able to drive significant growth.”

Jason Quehl - Head of Product Management & Growth, Data Analytics & AI, Ex Amazon, Red Bull, P&G

Leadership in Training & Development Platforms

“I worked with Kevin Lake as a Senior-level peer when Kevin was VP of Category & Shopper Development North America supporting both my Sales Team members in Canada as well as our US Sales division.   Kevin was an incredibly innovative leader and developed ground-breaking customer shopper development strategies and executional plans.   He built a Category Management Training platform that was instrumental in transforming the skills of our North American Sales and Marketing Team.   I would highly endorse Kevin in leading transformational platform development for any organization.”

Kevin Hoffman - General Manager, Escalade Wine & Spirits

Sales Team Transformational Enablers 

“Kevin reported to me directly when we led the launch of the Category Management, Insights & Analytics platform for our Kraft Canada retail sales division.   He blazed the trail in consumer and shopper insights and fact-based selling strategies that transformed the way in which our sales teams conducted business with our most valued retail partners.  His profitability modelling, category sales tools, shopper marketing initiatives and sales team training & development sessions were instrumental in driving significant business growth and strengthening our customer relationships.   His creativity and adaptability made him an indispensable leader within the Sales function.”

Don Earl – Director of Sales – Kraft, PepsiCo, Molson Coors, Moosehead Breweries

An Innovator & Builder of Game-changing Capabilities

“Kevin Lake is the consummate CPG Commercial Professional. With deep insights and knowledge into both the customer/retailer dynamic and the consumer, Kevin brings a holistic approach to building business. From delivering consumer insights from which innovation and creativity can be launched to building a compelling category and customer story to help bring it to life, Kevin does it all.  I had the pleasure of seeing Kevin in action and working side-by-side with him as he built tools, selling stories and worked directly with customers to grow our business by +30%.

Kevin balances a strength in developing strategy with the confidence of excellent execution. He leads by example and is a stellar teammate. Kevin made his team, our company and me better.  I heartily recommend him to any organization that seeks to take their performance to a new level!”

Todd Kelly - CEO and former peer as Vice President of Sales, Irving Consumer Products