What happens when a former L’Oréal fragrance manager takes on men’s grooming? Rock Face CEO James Wilkinson shares how he’s reshaping the category with a retail-first strategy, refillable innovation and a bold mission to redefine modern masculinity.

Welcome to the Marketing Hustle - a podcast about the real work behind building bold brands. We go behind the scenes with founders and marketing leaders to hear honest, unfiltered stories of what actually drives growth and cuts through the noise to build something that lasts.

Today’s guest is James Wilkinson, CEO of Rock Face – the men’s grooming brand that’s taking on global giants and redefining what it means to build a category-first business.

James began his career at L’Oréal before moving into innovation consulting, where he honed a category-led mindset that now powers Rock Face’s retail strategy. Instead of chasing DTC trends, Rock Face has focused on winning in supermarkets with repeat rates, category insights and retailer-first storytelling as the levers of growth.

In this episode, James shares how Rock Face is building a fragrance-led product system (not just formulas), launching refillable deodorants to push sustainability forward and navigating the challenge of balancing awareness with sales as a challenger brand.

We also dive into:

• Why starting in retail (not DTC) gave Rock Face the fastest path to scale

• How to build a category-first playbook that retailers can’t ignore

• The repeat rate metric that’s more powerful than penetration for startups

• Rock Face’s mission to tackle modern masculinity and create better voices in the conversation