Latest / Chief Officer / Janis Hoyt, Chief Officer at Primal Pet Group: Find Your First Believer

Transcript

Janis Hoyt, Chief Officer at Primal Pet Group: Find Your First Believer · Chief Officer

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Hi, Janis. Hi, Tiffany. What an honor
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to have you. I'm so excited to have
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you.
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Thank you. It's so nice to be with you today. Absolutely. No, of course.
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It's such an honor on my end. As our listeners should know, Janis and I go
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way back and our personal friends as well as collaborators through the
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years. And she's just such an incredible supporter and champion and has just
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been with us for so long. And I'm just really honored to have her here with
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us today to be able to shine a light on her incredible journey.
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and inspiring lessons and leadership and accomplishments. So I'm
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really delighted to be able to share your amazing story with
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everyone. And thank you again for being here with us. Thank you. My
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pleasure. Of course. It's been wonderful working with you too.
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I have to say that it's really been an honor. Thank you so much.
0:59
You know, I think you and I know the main angle of our podcast of our
1:04
show is to be really to be able to delve into your chief officer role
1:09
and to be able to hear how you got there and that moment you got it and
1:14
he told and all of that.
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But before we get there, I'd love for you to be able to share your story
1:20
prior to that moment of your first Chief Officer role. What was your story?
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Where did you grow up? All those years prior to the Chief Officer, where
1:29
were you and what shaped you along the way? Yeah, great. Well, I grew up in
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the San Francisco Bay Area and I had an opportunity to go to college at UC
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Berkeley.
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And that's where I received my undergraduate
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degree. And I have to say that I think that that is
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really where it sparked my interest in people. A
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lot of diversity unfolded there in my educational
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background and activities that I chose to get
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involved in. And I feel like I
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really became a sociologist, so to speak, while attending Berkeley,
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which actually happened to be what my major was at that time. And,
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you know, as you know, it's the study of people, I think is just so
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interesting how to how do people tick, so to speak, and, and what
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makes them different. And so I really am very fortunate to have that
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background and education.
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because that also drove I think a lot of that
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standard of achievement and you know putting your
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best foot forward and and the competitive part of
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it as well. And as I grew from from there I also
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got married and had a family after I got out of
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college but started my career
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primarily in retail first. I had joined Macy's executive
3:02
training program to become a buyer and I feel that that was
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such an opportunity to learn the ins and outs of business,
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the operations piece of it, sales, marketing, managing
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people at a young age of 30 people on a staff. So I really
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started to learn a lot.
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about the business on that path forward and had
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an opportunity to do an assignment in human
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resources along the way. So as I yeah it was it
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was such a great way to really learn about gross
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margin. You know how do you you know drive sales
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through insights you know.
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it's important to listen to the consumer, the customer. Every
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day someone's voting on what it is that you're selling. And so I
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learned a lot very early in my career, I think also about change
4:04
because it was rotational. You went from one assignment to the
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other. And I think that that's also something that even today
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encourage people to do.
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do. Be open to change and new responsibilities, new
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opportunities, because you can always learn something
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there. And I consider myself a lifelong learner. And I
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think that that is really the throughput of my career
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throughout and actually achieving.
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the chief officer role was really being open to
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learning. But from that experience, I went on to go
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into a different industry. I went into healthcare and
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I always feel like I've been drawn into these really
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purpose driven, you know, what's driving me from the
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heart and just these missions.
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driven companies. And so I had an opportunity to test
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that that's true. Yeah, it's important right to be
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able to connect the head and the heart. And I think
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that that's how culture shows up also in companies is
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if you have a
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a mission and a purpose. It's always easier to explain to
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everybody the why. Why was this organization created? Yeah,
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exactly.
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Yes, and I find myself really talking a lot about
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that in a lot of the companies along the way. But
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healthcare was great. I work at Aetna and that's
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really where I honed a lot of my
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human resource skills and became a human
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resource business partner, which was really
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stepping into that coaching and executive and
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understanding a human capital plan and really
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actually diving into all of those business
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related, how does the people strategy
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become part of the business strategy and how does that
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unfold? And so I really...
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I think I've built a lot of courage as I step
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through that. Then I was given an opportunity to
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join a company that really shaped a lot about who
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I was as a person, both personally and
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professionally, and that was the Clorox company.
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It's such an amazing CPG company.
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of healthcare into CPG allowed me to really build those
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muscles of how do you learn about a different industry
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and what I found was there's a lot of things that you
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can pull through from one industry to the other that
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seem to be really important especially as it related to
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people and leading
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people function. And so in that experience
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at Clorox, I was able to do something that
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really helped me think about my career
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growth. That's really where it started to
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grow to the next level.
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And when i think about what
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happened some of the greatest
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points along the way.
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doing something that was completely out of my comfort
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zone, and something that I may not have necessarily
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thought that I could do. And that was taking on an
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international role. Who was the first believer? Was it
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someone that was a mentor?
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It actually was my boss, my boss, Bill Dixey at the
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time. He came to me because there was an opportunity
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to step into this. It was a head of HR for Latin
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America and Europe.
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And he approached me with that and he said, "I know
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we've been talking about development." And you had
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mentioned something kind of aspirationally that
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international was something that you had an interest
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in. And he said,
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What do you think about taking on this role of
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heading HR for Latin America? We had I'm getting
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chills and trees in Latin America and then a small
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business in London. And I said, Bill, I don't even
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know how to speak Spanish. I I sure this is
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you know, we have directors in each of those countries
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and he said, "I believe you can do this job. I believe
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that you have the willingness to grow and to develop
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and also step into it with the best set of values." And
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so,
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When you hear that word about, "I believe that you can do,"
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that's the first time I really step back and I thought,
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"Wow, someone is believing me." Because I remember saying,
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"Are you sure?" That's something that I...
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should do and can do and it actually
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happens to be one of the most pivotal
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roles that has helped me with really my
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toolkit so to speak as I've developed and
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has grown as an HR and a chief officer
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because
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You really become flexible to change and learning.
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Everything in every country is different and it's
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different in every country. So you're learning
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constantly about the environment, about what makes
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things work here. What are the differences? And when
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you grow up,
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in the US, US based company, experiencing
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international, I think it just helps you
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to become just this global citizen. And
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it's about the people no matter where you
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go. And I just found that so refreshing
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that
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I felt these points of just comfort knowing that
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what were some of the expectations in different
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countries were very similar to what I had been
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working with in years, which was about people
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wanting to grow personally, professionally.
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and financially and how is that going to unfold for them
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and how is the company going to make that transparent
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for them? How will my career grow? How will I know I'm
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ready for the next step and what is it that I need to do to
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take those steps and see that come to light for me?
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That experience was incredibly rewarding, but it was
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really all about someone believing in me. I love
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that. Bill Dixey was his name he said. Yes. Bill
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Dixey. And I had that opportunity actually unfold
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to me really twice as I continued to grow my
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career and they were
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They were all experiences that I had
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not necessarily had on my plan, so
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to speak.
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Yes. You know, think you have this career plan, I'm
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going to do this, I'm going to stay here for X amount.
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And I always believe that plans when you're open to new
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things that come out of the blue can be so rewarding and
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can be actually places and spaces that are out of your
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comfort zone.
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that allow you to really get the biggest
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level of growth and development. And what I
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feel comes about, and I'll use another
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example of
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growth. I had another big growth opportunity when I
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was at Blue Shield of California and became the vice
13:09
president of human resources and there was a major
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change initiative for the entire company and my boss
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at that time, the CHRO Mary O'Hara who was amazing and
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really
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was another first believer of something that I could do
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and that I could lead. And hearing those words along the
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way, I was like, okay, this is something I could step
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into. But also knowing that there are people that are to
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help support you and champion you. And that's where I think
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people
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also as they develop their career and I know that as things
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have unfolded for me, it's been really important to know
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that I have developed mentor relationships along the way.
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Yes. And there's definitely differences between
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that mentor who's your cheerleader versus the
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mentor who is there to champion you in the room
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when you're not there and really unfold that and in
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all of those opportunities where I had a first
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believer that I could do something
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that I wasn't even sure that you know I could do.
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They were my champion in the room when I wasn't
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even there.
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And the most impactful time that that happened, where
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I had a true believer, and it was my first
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opportunity to step into the Chief People Officer
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role at the Honest Company. And that was Nick Vlahos.
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That's where we met, by the way, Janis and myself.
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Yes. What an amazing company.
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five years old when I joined Nick Vlahos had
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just been named the CEO. He was the COO at
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Clorox. So we had worked together. I didn't
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know that connection existed. Wow. Yes. So I
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got the call.
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which was this great opportunity to come
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and join this fast growing startup. It
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was started by Jessica Alba, Christopher
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Gavigan, Brian Lee,
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Sean Kane, it was an amazing one of the first
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direct consumer companies, a lot of
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excitement that was happening around that. It
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was started in 2012 and it was on this huge
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growth.
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plan and they needed people to come in and
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make sure that it was going to be guided down
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the right path. But
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Also, it needed some leaders who had been
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there and had experience in consumer
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products and goods. And so when I got the
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call to join the organization, Nick also
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said, "I know the work that you can do,
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Janis."
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I'm a believer that you can make so much
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happen in this area of driving a people
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strategy and moreover partnering with a
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leadership team to line this organization on
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what we want it to do.
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With that, you know, it really calls upon
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your vulnerability and your humility and all
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those things that I love. A lot of the things
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that Brené Brown brings to the table about
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vulnerability and how that opens up.
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you know, empathy and um and do you think that was what was an
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ingredient in your relationships with these two first believers
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with Bill with Nick what was your dynamic like with them that
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ultimately led to such a strong relationship one of belief one of
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true partnership and collaboration what were the ingredients the
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dynamic of those relationships
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I think it was based on trust.
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We had built a relationship on
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trust. And I think it has to do
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with the expectations of work
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and knowing that I was
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committed.
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to doing the work. They were committed to
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aligning clear expectations and deliverables.
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And I really believe that during that time of
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building this trusting relationship with them,
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it challenged me to be courageous about asking
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for feedback.
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And it's the first time I really realized how important
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that was because I kind of feared feedback. I think
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growing up, you know, in a household where
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You know, if you got feedback from your
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parents, it wasn't always about meeting,
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you know, it was always about, you know, I
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think what you could do better. So I think
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that over time, I didn't necessarily always
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seek out feedback.
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feedback and looking at it as a gift and being
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confident enough that you know failures are
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the way that we grow and being courageous and
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humble enough to say okay
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That's something that I could have done better. And that's
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something that I may have failed at, but I'm willing to get
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up and try and be committed. And so I think that building
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those relationships, which were trusting relationships,
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really led to
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that openness for them to be a believer that I was
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going to show up with the personal leadership brand
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that was important to me. I really felt that there
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was a commitment that I had to bring my best self.
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- Amazing. So it was a huge trust between you
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and...
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Bill, you and Nick that led to these incredible opportunities. I wonder if I
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wanted to highlight that further to our listeners as they seek out mentors
20:26
and believers themselves to remember to establish that level of trust with
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that hopefully first believer or second believer for them. And so my
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question to you next is,
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That moment when Nick made that call to you, where were you? Kind of
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cinematically describe it for me if you can. How did you receive the call?
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What was it like hearing from him on this opportunity that you got it? How
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did it go?
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It was really something that was a bit of a surprise because
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I was in the midst of change. I was in the process of
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leaning into my executive coaching, I have an executive
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coaching certificate and I wanted to, I was thinking about
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going out and doing that kind of independently. It was
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leaving Blue Shield, having complete
21:17
a number of initiatives and really thinking about
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what was next for me. And I got the call from
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Nick and we went to lunch.
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And we were basically just talking about this amazing company
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that he had just joined. And the one thing that I know that was
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just so rewarding about the conversation was it was really
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focused on people and it was focused on talent. And it was
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focused on his belief about how do you build a high performing
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team. And he is one of those leads
21:55
You know, he's gone on to do remarkable things,
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you know, after the Honest Company. We took it
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public in 2021 and he's went on to be the CEO of
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Rhode and worked with Hailey Bieber and did a
22:14
huge sale with e.l.f. and it's now becoming one
22:19
of the most, you know,
22:21
(laughs) amazing companies and growing. But it's all
22:26
about really focusing on the people, having the right
22:31
people around you and building a high performing team
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which is completely built on trust. It's built also
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on transparencies,
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It's built on feedback. It's built on building capabilities
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and alignment. And when you build that trust, you can have
22:52
those conversations and listen to people that you have trust
22:56
with. You hear different things from people. And my husband's
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like that too. He's actually one of my mentors because I know
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he, I trust him. He's on my
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I have a personal, a lot of people may do this,
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well, I have my own personal board of directors. -
23:18
Yes.
23:18
that I go to when I really want to get deep on, you know, is this
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something I should do? Is this something that you believe I'm capable of
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doing or have the capacity to do and capacity is something really
23:32
important. Sometimes I jump in and say yes, yes, I can do that. But do I
23:37
really have the capacity to do that? And that's another thing. - So he
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approved when then you got the coffee?
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for primal in Himalayan. - Yes, exactly. - Was that
23:49
them directly or was that the research firm? How did
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that go? - No, that actually, it's amazing because
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it's somewhat similar situation after,
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Honest had gone public and we built this public
24:06
organization, new leadership team, built out the board. I
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stayed there for a little over a year, knowing that I was
24:16
going to be moving back to Northern California. And I got
24:20
another call from someone who was stepping into a CEO role,
24:25
someone who also I had worked with.
24:28
with at Clorox and his name is Jon
24:32
Balousek who is my current boss, amazing
24:37
leader as well and also had a real focus
24:42
on I need to build a leadership team that
24:46
is a high performing team and we have a
24:51
very aggressive
24:53
you know, path forward and strategy. It is owned by
24:58
private equity and happy to say that, you know, a
25:02
sale of the foods business just happened this past
25:07
year. But it was also about change and how you can
25:12
have speed moving you forward and
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I think that one of the key things that they knew I
25:20
would be able to do as one of the chief officers on
25:24
the leadership team, and I do believe the board
25:29
also believe that, is that I could have courage to
25:34
ask the question in the room.
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that is about people and quite often it's the most
25:41
uncomfortable one by asking, "Do we have the capacity
25:46
as an organization with the talent we have to do all
25:51
of the initiatives we have?" Love that.
25:55
And who's who's going to be courageous enough to say no, we
25:59
can't do that. And we have to be really thoughtful about that
26:04
because we all want to grow. We all want to do, you know, the
26:09
millions things, but it's really about finding the critical few
26:14
things as opposed to the.
26:16
critical many things that are often on our plates. And how beautiful that
26:20
you pointed that out as.
26:21
part of your growth journey, a childhood in which you were afraid to receive
26:26
feedback and now that's become your strength is providing or receiving
26:30
feedback and building that level of trust. And now that's your
26:34
differentiator you just pointed out. I love that. A few more final questions
26:39
for you just, you know, with all the disruption happening across AI and the
26:43
excitement around the future of work now for HR leaders, what is it?
26:47
that you're proudest of at this time in terms of looking back upon
26:52
your career, your journey, the accomplishment that you feel you
26:57
most contributed to and created most impact. I think that it's
27:02
really about understanding the different waves of
27:05
what would be the tools needed to infuse into the
27:10
company because everyone's talking about the wave of
27:15
AI and how that's going to impact every company. What
27:20
I have to say is that every company is unique.
27:24
Every culture to every company is so unique and so i
27:28
think it's really about the assessment of the culture
27:33
that needs to happen.
27:35
to really understand the speed in which you're going to
27:40
infuse all of those tools, especially AI. And I'm seeing
27:45
that a lot of companies that believe that it's going to
27:49
actually take over one entire function, you know, that
27:54
might need to be done a little bit more surgically. How
27:59
can you bring that
28:01
in as part of your overall, it's no longer a human capital
28:05
planning process. It's really a capability planning process,
28:10
right? That every company is challenged with. What's the
28:14
capabilities sets and how does it show up? In in what ways? And
28:19
that's quite often, you know, very similar to, you know, are we
28:24
outsourcing this capability? Are we
28:27
in sourcing it? Are we building the capability internally or
28:32
externally? Are we doing it with AI? Are we are we having
28:36
that you know builds more slowly in this area as opposed to
28:41
others? So I would have to say that really with with every
28:46
change that has been very significant, whether it was the
28:51
introduction of the, you know, the internet and social
28:55
media. And I think back to the days of COVID and how
29:00
important these, you know, communications and everything,
29:04
you know, really listening and understanding the current
29:09
state of the culture.
29:11
And what people need, I think that, you know,
29:15
assessing the speed of which you need to infuse that
29:20
is
29:20
what is really important and where I feel I've been able to
29:25
do that, like we need to catch up and going and we can't
29:30
ignore this and we need to figure out how we test and train.
29:34
It's okay to fail at it and, and, and, you know, fail quickly
29:39
and get up and start learning again. I am a strong believer
29:44
of that and I think we can
29:46
really push ourselves to do that. And I really think that
29:51
that's something that we all need to take a step back is
29:56
really look at what are the needs and assess and learn
30:01
deeply what are those tools and look at things as a set
30:06
of tools.
30:06
to help us be better across the board. I love
30:11
that. And yeah, I definitely think your ability
30:16
to act so flexibly at speed, surgically though,
30:21
when you see the need has been within your
30:25
toolbox for success since you've
30:29
been a leader and a partner to the CEO at so many incredibly fast scaling
30:34
organizations. So to hear that that is part of your success, I completely
30:38
agree. My final question to you is what advice would you give to someone
30:43
just below the chief officer seat who would love to be more like you? What's
30:48
that piece of advice that would help them get there?
30:52
Well, I think it's really being open to the
30:56
continued learning because every time I've
31:01
stepped, I've now stepped into three, you know,
31:05
CHRO roles, two significant ones at both honest
31:10
and Primal Pet Group. And I'd have to say that
31:15
just being open to learning.
31:18
and know that that's going to continue on. But find the
31:22
right mentors around you who are going to champion you along
31:27
the way because you will need those people as you step into
31:32
the role.
31:33
It's so great to have a network of a couple of people who have
31:38
been there, done that, you can reach out to and talk to. Lean
31:43
into also what you're going to learn from people in the
31:47
organization because I think a lot of times people step into
31:51
these roles and they're expected to have all the answers. Every
31:56
time I've stepped into an organization,
31:59
as a CHRO or Chief People Officer, the first thing
32:04
I do is set a timeframe in which I do listening
32:09
sessions. And listening to the attributes and the
32:13
characteristics of the culture and listening to
32:18
what has changed, what are things that...
32:22
Seem to stay in place from the beginning of the company
32:27
you know there are things that continue to organically
32:32
exists and that usually ties back to the mission and the
32:36
purpose and so i think listening.
32:39
is an important part of that. But also, you
32:44
know, get your network and your mentors
32:48
together. Lean on your personal leadership
32:52
board of directors.
32:55
I have a family and children. I'm so proud of all my kids
32:59
becoming adults and doing well in their own careers. And I do
33:04
listen to them and expect feedback. And boy, if you want to get
33:09
feedback, ask your kids because they have a problem telling you.
33:13
I love that.
33:14
what's true. So. Well, thank you so much, Janis. What a pleasure and
33:19
honor again to spend this half hour with you. And Janis, just so everyone
33:24
knows, was in a major town hall with her CEO stepped out of it just to be
33:29
with us today at Chief Officer and now has to jet off to the airport as
33:34
well. So excited again to have you and just so inspired by you. So thank
33:39
you again.
33:39
Thank you so much. I wish you well. Safe travels to
33:44
you.
33:45
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