The CFO Agenda: Raw Sugar Living’s Jonathan Weiss

Learn more about NetSuite for health and beauty companies: https://tinyurl.com/2uesmbsr

 

Tune in for the next installment of The CFO Agenda series featuring Jonathan Weiss, CFO of Raw Sugar Living, a health and beauty brand selling hair and body products with natural ingredients. Jonathan and cohost Megan O’Brien kick off the podcast episode by discussing Jonathan’s background and what brought him to the CFO role at Raw Sugar [1:39]. They then delve into Raw Sugar’s use of NetSuite and why having a strong tech stack is so important for the company [21:21]. Jonathan and Megan conclude the episode by discussing CFO priorities for 2025 [42:00].

 

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Follow Us Here:

Jonathan Weiss: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-m-weiss/

Raw Sugar: https://rawsugarliving.com/

 

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Episode Transcript:

 

 

 

The CFO Agenda: Raw Sugar Living’s Jonathan Weiss 

 

00;00;05;07 - 00;00;37;18 

Unknown 

Hello NetSuite listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in to the network podcast. I'm Megan O'Brien, a co-host of the podcast. Today we're continuing our CFO agenda series with Jonathan Weiss, CFO of Raw Sugar, a health and beauty brand selling premium hair and body products made of natural ingredients. You've probably seen their shampoos, conditioners and other products in their signature white bottles with bamboo tops around Target, Walmart, CVS, etc. 

 

00;00;37;21 - 00;00;58;26 

Unknown 

We discuss Jonathan's path to the role of the CFO. Hint as not necessarily what you would expect. His perspective on the future of the finance function, the company's tech stack, and some of Raw Sugar's goals over the next year. So stay tuned. You're not going to want to miss this episode. 

 

00;00;58;28 - 00;01;25;15 

Unknown 

You're listening to the NetSuite Podcast, where we discuss what's happening within NetSuite, why we're doing it, and where we're heading in the future. We'll dive into the details about the software and the people at NetSuite who are behind all the moving parts. We'll also feature customer growth stories discussing the ups and downs of running a company, and how one integrated system can help your business continue to scale. 

 

00;01;25;18 - 00;01;59;04 

Unknown 

Hi, how are you doing today? Afternoon. This is such a treat. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on. I mean, let's go ahead and just jump right into the questions. So could you talk a bit about your past roles and your path to where you are now? Sure. Well, it's been a long road, but it started with UCLA, undergrad and had this awesome liberal arts education and yet was also able to take about 8 to 10 accounting classes. 

 

00;01;59;04 - 00;02;25;08 

Unknown 

And from that, I started out at KPMG in New York, working in the audit side, luckily got assigned into the manufacturing retail space, liked it, but didn't love it to be honest, and started kind of my journey to where I am now because, I jumped over to the consulting side and started kind of hoping different partners answer different problems for large corporations. 

 

00;02;25;11 - 00;02;54;28 

Unknown 

Went off to business school back at UCLA because I wanted to be back in the LA market and then had a great, lucky opportunity when I was about 30, where two founders who had created a fashionable scrubs business long before that was the thing. And I came on kind of as a consultant and would eventually became their partner, and for seven years grew this into a business that really I loved and enjoyed. 

 

00;02;55;01 - 00;03;21;03 

Unknown 

And for the last 20 years, I've pretty much been doing the same role of CFO CEOs. Sometimes it's been for founders, sometimes it's been for public companies like LVMH. And then for the last eight years it's been with different private equity firms, a liberal arts degree taking accounting classes. You don't hear that very often now, but, it's something I advise all the people I work with because, you know, we'll talk about this. 

 

00;03;21;03 - 00;03;43;27 

Unknown 

What is the role of finance and accounting now, and especially with outsourcing and big data? You know, at the end of the day, it's a value add. Understand what the information is telling you. And I don't think that's much different than reading a great novel or seeing a movie and trying to understand what it's trying to tell you who communication is. 

 

00;03;43;28 - 00;04;06;20 

Unknown 

Major me likes that. Okay, so you ended up joining Ross Sugar close to five years ago. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what Ross Sugar does? Yeah, sure. Ross Sugar has been around for about ten years. It's usually a white bottle with a bamboo top, but it was created ten years ago by two founders, Ronnie and Donna. 

 

00;04;06;23 - 00;04;31;08 

Unknown 

And they had a really unique idea, which was they thought there should be clean products in the main aisle.Now, that doesn't sound like a big idea, but back in 2014, it was, and then they wanted it to look good on your shelf and your counter and your bathroom and your kitchen. And they wanted also to be something that you were proud of and a brand that you were proud of and uniquely. 

 

00;04;31;08 - 00;05;03;01 

Unknown 

And we could talk about this a little later. They created a business model, not out of digitally native, but out of brick and mortar, and that made them really unique. And I think was really instrumental to their success. What is RawSugar's mission? I think it's evolved basically at scale. When I think about it. But the mission has always been the same, which is it's a kind of a belief that everyone deserves clean products, that there's a range just like the food we eat and the clothes we buy and the emissions we put out. 

 

00;05;03;01 - 00;05;29;01 

Unknown 

We want to put better products into the market with better ingredients, but that people can afford. And our competitors are not the high-priced prestige brands. They're really Dove and Dial. And now native and love, Beauty Planet and all these other mass players that have come into the market that believe customers, consumers deserve a choice with better ingredients. 

 

00;05;29;04 - 00;05;53;22 

Unknown 

Yeah, I feel like you guys were such trendsetters in that because it has become a huge movement. But I remember seeing your products around before, kind of all those other players came into it. Yeah, no. And you know, I think what's very great, what I love about our story is that's what drove the founders. And so they started out in liquid hand soap and some lotions and scrubs. 

 

00;05;53;24 - 00;06;21;00 

Unknown 

Then they saw an opportunity in body wash. Then they saw an opportunity in hair. Then they saw an opportunity in kids. Then they saw an opportunity in Doe. And even this summer we launched a pet care because if we had a kids line, we thought, animals deserve, good ingredients too. So it's that's kind of where the ethos of the company comes from is this idea that there are these categories that need changing. 

 

00;06;21;03 - 00;06;45;06 

Unknown 

Well, it's funny because now that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking close to five years ago. So you kind of started at a very Covid time or start of a Covid you time. How did that how did that go? Yeah. You know, exactly. Covid. So made 2020. And sometimes I talk about RawSugar 1.00. Sugar 2.0. 

 

00;06;45;06 - 00;07;18;04 

Unknown 

And today we're in the third, I think version of it, 1.0 is the Ronnie and Don, the story of creating and founding the brand and making an impact, especially at target. So 2.0, I like to think it was when I came in, I was the 11th employee and the business was doubling because of Covid. One reason because people needed soap too, is we had a very domestic based manufacturing model and we were sourcing some components from Asia, mainly Topps and Ronnie and Don. 

 

00;07;18;04 - 00;07;42;09 

Unknown 

They realized that Covid was going to be something massive, and they invested in componentry. And so we were on shelf and got a lot of trial by a lot of people when our competitors were out of stock. And I came along because of that dramatic increase in the first 45 days of Covid, and I've been in the LA area for a long time, and this is kind of what I, I don't want to say specialize in. 

 

00;07;42;09 - 00;08;10;27 

Unknown 

But really this journey of professionalizing a business, of allowing founders to do what they do and to create structure around that. But financial structure but also supply chain structure and channel structure and strategy. And so I kind of came in to help them scale this business. And so I was employee number 11. And today we're 40. So just to give you a sense of the scale of how much the business has changed since I'vecome along, that's amazing. 

 

00;08;10;27 - 00;08;34;23 

Unknown 

Yeah, they probably were like, we need help ready to scale because everyone wants soap nowadays. Yeah. And just from a finance and accounting perspective, you know, I look back, the first thing I feel like I learned in business school. I love analogies. And our teams will laugh because I use them all the time. But like I think about backpacking and to be successful you need a great dashboard. 

 

00;08;34;23 - 00;08;57;20 

Unknown 

You need to know where you're pointed and orient yourself. You need to know how fast you're moving. You know, you need to know the resources you require to get to where you want to go. And so I've always looked at this role that I play with the partner in the founders is to help them understand that because success creates a lot of challenges on a cash level. 

 

00;08;57;20 - 00;09;17;05 

Unknown 

Surprisingly on an inventory level, on a channel, conflict level on a supply chain, capacity level. So there's a lot of things you have to manage through success. And a lot of actual constraints. And so that's kind of how I'vealways looked at the finance and accounting role. But I've also always looked at how I look at my relationship with the founders. 

 

00;09;17;05 - 00;09;38;25 

Unknown 

I've gotten to work with. Yeah. And I think we kind of like we talk about this sometimes, but probably not enough sometimes. I think, you know, you think of success and growth and everything as, oh, we get there and it's smooth sailing and it's like, well, no, it brings its own set of challenges. Oh, no. Look, at the end of the day, people make things happen for brands. 

 

00;09;38;25 - 00;10;05;01 

Unknown 

The technology platforms that you use realize, that talent and give us the information that we are and where to go. But when you hit a certain scale as the business hit in that spring of 2020, tying it into exactly what you're saying is, I remember the first thing Ronnie said to me is like, I have no idea how much money, we need, to communicate to the bank. 

 

00;10;05;03 - 00;10;37;00 

Unknown 

I don't know how much more componentry we need, how many more ingredients and componentry we requireto meet the demand we're seeing. And so all of those things, and we were working at that time off of QuickBooks and getting our head around that and trying to create that narrative of what it was going to take us to continue to be successful is kind of what the role accounting and finances play then, and kind of place today. 

 

00;10;37;03 - 00;11;01;12 

Unknown 

And this is probably a tough one to answer. I'm sure it changes, but if you had to kind of summarize it, what does a typical day in your shoes look like? You know, so it's changed a lot. You know, the bigger the organization gets, the more competency and capacities you have. So when I started out, it was Ronnie and Donna's humility to understand they need someone like myself. 

 

00;11;01;15 - 00;11;29;16 

Unknown 

And then almost immediately, my I started hiring people in the areas that weren't my strength, supply chain and planning systems. And it, and eventually an accounting manager in some other areas. So today, to answer that question, my day is so different than it was 4 or 5 years ago. My day now is really working down, you know, with my team, making sure they have their priorities set. 

 

00;11;29;16 - 00;11;54;01 

Unknown 

They understand where the rest of the organization's going, what deadlines are approaching, what questions we're trying to answer. But a lot of the work is across. So I like to think that my favorite part of being a CFO is all the stakeholders. I kind of have the privilege of getting to work with and be in conversation with. So that'sthe VP of marketing, that's the VP of ops. 

 

00;11;54;03 - 00;12;16;00 

Unknown 

But it's also our private equity firm, our lender, and sometimes our brokers who work directly with our channel partners. So it varies so much and it's kind of, you know, makes that's what I love about what I do. And now I have a team underneath me that I can really work with and know that they're going to execute. 

 

00;12;16;00 - 00;12;46;11 

Unknown 

And so I spend a lot more of my time outside the finance and accounting function than inside it. You participated in a keynote this year at SuiteWorld with Sam Levy, who's the SVP of Growth and Operations at NetSuite. So what was that experience like? Oh it's fantastic. I mean, I giggle about it. I went to UCLA Business School 25 years ago and people take different paths and mine is always been under the radar. 

 

00;12;46;17 - 00;13;08;15 

Unknown 

And so to kind of go in front of a large room and get to talk about raw sugar, which to me is like encapsulatesall the work that came before. It was just such a thrill and really fun. And then on top of it, it's and not to push the product, but I really feel like that suite is like always it's the product they always wished for. 

 

00;13;08;19 - 00;13;26;21 

Unknown 

And so our road and our growth and, Raw Sugar, it's kind of let us leverage that. So it was really fun chatting with Sam and I like I have to clarify for people, I mean, this was not just a large room. I mean, this was a keynote tent in Vegas. Thousands of people type thing. I mean, huge. 

 

00;13;26;23 - 00;13;50;11 

Unknown 

So that's like a big jump. Yeah. No. And people joke with me like they're like, did you, you know, see me that big? Did you, do you, have you done a big room before? And I was like, no, no, no. Just kind of think what you get over a hundred. It all feels the same. Yeah, I guess I get that point, you know, you can't quite see that far back, so maybe it just feels the same. 

 

00;13;50;11 - 00;14;13;10 

Unknown 

It's public speaking at a point. Yeah. And I think the other side and again you hear me if I refer to Ronnie and Don to like Don is still very engaged in our business. And so one of the reasons why both of us continue to be engaged is we're trying to make this brand a forever brand. We talk about it and, you know, you there are financial goals for our investors. 

 

00;14;13;12 - 00;14;33;12 

Unknown 

We all participate in our success. But like at the core, we could be doing a lot of different things. And what we really want is more people to be aware of Raw Sugar. And, and frankly, for me, I'll say for people to be proud and aware of our team that's just done an amazing job and in a very unique environment. 

 

00;14;33;15 - 00;14;52;18 

Unknown 

It's funny because it is just in a way, it's a very indirect promotion and all of that in a way, because I've seen products at NetSuite’s SuiteWorld and all of a sudden said, yeah, I'm going to start buying that. So interviewed the CFO of Johnny Pops, which was, popsicle brand a couple of years back at SuiteWorld. 

 

00;14;52;20 - 00;15;17;04 

Unknown 

I now buy their popsicles. I like all of a sudden saw Raw Sugar at Target, and I was like, yeah, okay. Like, as soon as I see a customer name, I'm like, yeah, I kind of want to buy it now. Oh, well, that makes it even more worthwhile. And you kind of alluded to this, earlier, but in the keynote you broke down Raw Sugar’s growth journey into three phases: 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. 

 

00;15;17;07 - 00;15;40;14 

Unknown 

Can you kind of explain those phases to our listeners? Not sure. I mean, I referenced that earlier and did it in the context I think of the team. You know, a 1.0 was a founder driven model, 2.0 is that transition of scaling and bringing in talent, and three is this journey we've been on for a couple of years now. 

 

00;15;40;14 - 00;16;03;21 

Unknown 

We call it clean for all I is, but it's once we had some private equity investment. The second quality of it is we had, we've really built a leadership team. I mentioned the VP of supply chain and VP of marketing and a CEO, Mike Maki, who were lucky enough to come over from Johnson and Johnson and OG, a brand that also plays in the clean space. 

 

00;16;03;23 - 00;16;26;29 

Unknown 

So those characteristics. But most of all, we went for the all, which is the brand was really built out of Target and then Walgreens and then Kroger. So brick and mortar players and Ronnie and Donna would always pick one player who they felt it was the right place to start. So that when you create that level of partnership and work with the consumer. 

 

00;16;26;29 - 00;16;49;21 

Unknown 

So this next this 3.0 post-Covid, now we're in Walmart. We're on Amazon, we have a DTC site. We are also in CVS. We're also in Kroger as well as Albertsons. We're in Mexico as well as in Canada. So like we're really now trying to take our mission and find as many customers we can wherever we can be impactful. 

 

00;16;49;27 - 00;17;17;15 

Unknown 

Going from brick and mortar to e-commerce, it's kind of the opposite of what we usually see. What was the thought behind that? Yeah, no, I, I early on told Ronnie and that would be the Harvard business case. If we go all the way, because in 2014, people really wanted to own their customer. People believe that the margin they were able to gather and the email list, they could be that was the way to build the business. 

 

00;17;17;15 - 00;17;47;15 

Unknown 

And Ronnie and Donna came from a different place, Ronnie, and worked, working with, importing and bringing in things from Asia and really understood manufacturing. Grew up in that family that had a soap business and Don that worked in the brokerage side and worked with major retailers like Target and Walmart and CVS. And so when they came together to create the brand, they really understood that there was an opportunity for buyers. 

 

00;17;47;21 - 00;18;23;12 

Unknown 

And when I mean buyers meeting at target, especially to help shape a brand that they would then get the traffic for. And when they said that, they said, and we're now going to make this a digital brand, we're going to nurture it in the brick-and-mortar space, and we're going to pick strategic partners. And that was both very unique, but ends up being very smart because it really created a very deep relationship with target that went all the way through to we were brands of the year in the beauty space in 2020, and that allowed the brand to learn, learn what the customer wanted. 

 

00;18;23;12 - 00;18;45;01 

Unknown 

And there were definitely changes and evolutionary steps along the way, but it really created that level of partnership that sometimes when you're digital or you're grabbing your own set of the profit or your own relationship with the customer, I think the buyers, are more in a competitive situation and it really worked well for us and was a very unique strategy. 

 

00;18;45;01 - 00;19;10;14 

Unknown 

I can't think of. Another brand started in the teens that, went that way. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it does make sense because, like, I do I mean, from my personal experience, it's kind of like you go into a store and you're like, oh, this is a really cool bottle. And oh, it's clean ingredients. And then you kind of like, build out awareness there, and that's how you make your purchases a lot of times in that space. 

 

00;19;10;16 - 00;19;40;09 

Unknown 

Yeah. No. And it's I can just from my prior experience, I worked with a brand called Ulla Henriksen that was acquired by Louis Vuitton and Louis Vuitton. LVMH also owns Sephora, and now there's a whole division called Kendo Brands. But essentially the concept is why should someone shop at Ulta versus Sephora? One of the reasons is to create exclusive relationships with brands. 

 

00;19;40;12 - 00;20;01;12 

Unknown 

And so it's not the only place that it's happening, but on the brand side, you usually really seek out and find whatever relationship you can, for sales and to be disciplined and say only the brick and mortar is really unique. Okay. Today, the day that I learned that Sephora is owned by Louis Vuitton, that is true. 

 

00;20;01;15 - 00;20;30;18 

Unknown 

No idea. And, also an amazing place. And the mask space is very different than the prestige space. So it's, that was a great five years. I learned a ton. And, you know, going back to my early start working in public accounting is that's where it really paid dividends, because I really wore both hats. I was part of a small organization with less than $50 million of revenue but was reporting to a public company. 

 

00;20;30;18 - 00;20;50;18 

Unknown 

And so the public accounting that I learned early on, next, with the work I had done with founders to that point, kind of came together and allowed, I think, that entity to have a lot more space to grow and not kind of, get consumed by a large multinational because we were able to kind of wear both hats. 

 

00;20;50;20 - 00;21;18;23 

Unknown 

Yeah, that's a great mix of expertise, new and super unique experience. And, you know, really kind of joyful and a brand, I mean, one of the other great parts, I have two teenage daughters and, they really care, what beauty brands I work with. I'm less beauty focused. But, when you start building your career out and you start looking at these brands and seeing them on the shelf, it makes you really proud. 

 

00;21;18;25 - 00;21;47;03 

Unknown 

Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. So how has raw sugar been using that? Sweet. Honestly, in almost every way. I'mblushing because I feel like I'm selling it, but I will take it dinner with a bunch of CFOs. I'd say the same thing. I worked with Sage. I've worked in QuickBooks environments. I've worked in SAP environments as SAP one especially, and NetSuite for us is the center that we like. 

 

00;21;47;07 - 00;22;12;17 

Unknown 

We literally have a person who's not an IT expert, but who came in from an ops department of another beauty brand to literally help us implement that suite and then connect NetSuite to all of our business value opportunities. And it's a relationship. So just to think about it, to give you a context, the way we use NetSuite, we use NetSuite to connect. 

 

00;22;12;20 - 00;22;34;20 

Unknown 

So we have we have three plus in warehouses. We have FDI coming in for all of these retailers for our orders, but also for our payment notifications and our own shipping notifications. We also have planning and budgeting. We need to do so. We use NetSuite Planning and budgeting to do more of our forecasting and some of our demand planning. 

 

00;22;34;26 - 00;23;09;20 

Unknown 

But then we also use a tool called it which is trade promotions, which is a really big part of being a mass brand.And all the discounts, people saying buy one, get one freeze and markdowns and all those things that happen, they take the price down. Well, those getting charged back to the brand and us being able to track those programs and those promotions and understand the financial obligation and the accruals necessary, are just different ways we were able to use NetSuite to keep track of our business. 

 

00;23;09;24 - 00;23;34;20 

Unknown 

Why is having a strong tech stack so important specifically for Raw Sugar? Well, I think it's important for everyone. If you go back to the backpacker analogy and what I learned in business school, to know where you are in order to know where you're going, well, now it's exponentially more challenging. The marginal cost for new data is so small, we can get POS information. 

 

00;23;34;22 - 00;23;57;24 

Unknown 

We can get all of our information from NetSuite, but you have to have the right tech stack to interpret that information. We use NetSuite Planning and Budgeting as a reporting tool, so we can really understand our different channels. So our profitability for Target and Walmart are very different than drug. Then they're very different than our digital channels. 

 

00;23;57;24 - 00;24;42;01 

Unknown 

And never mind our distribution relationships. And international. So having the right tools allows us to do what's fundamentally and I probably should have said this earlier, but my big joy but also fundamental belief, it's frankly why I like doing podcasts and things like that is I think, CFOs and this goes back to the first partner I worked for, KPMG, who said this to me in the 90s is they're scarcity driven, that they're basically playing a role of finger wagons and counting and scorekeepers, and what they actually are sitting on a treasure trove of value and information that can drive decision making throughout an organization. 

 

00;24;42;04 - 00;25;08;09 

Unknown 

And so I try to articulate to everyone and our team, but also cross-functionally across our management team is we want finance and accounting to be an informational source to drive value driven opportunity cost decisions. We want to have the best information we can to make better decisions in a timely fashion, and that puts you on the for the front foot and not the back foot. 

 

00;25;08;09 - 00;25;36;12 

Unknown 

It's not just the reporting package we're trying to do here. We're actually that's a very small amount of what we're trying to do. What we're really trying to do is inform better decision making. And so coupling that suite with other tools like data we get for our point-of-sale information, data we get from our factories, data we get from Shopify as an example, and Amazon being able to leverage all that data and bring it together. 

 

00;25;36;12 - 00;25;58;23 

Unknown 

NetSuite allows us to do it and then we're able to create information for the organization. Oh man. That is just kind of so spot on to themes that we've been touching on recently. This idea of the CFO being a very strategic business partner and driving value within the organization, not kind of like not as much the back office. 

 

00;25;58;23 - 00;26;26;11 

Unknown 

We're going to report the numbers after they've happened, you know, and it's just kind of interesting to see that transition. And this person said this to me in 1995. So yeah, just to give you a context of, you know, how meaningful that and if you tie that to then my liberal arts education, it's why I kind of to me the accounting and is really just learning foreign language. 

 

00;26;26;14 - 00;26;55;28 

Unknown 

It's learning a way to articulate what's happening and to communicate across the organization. The real value is the decision-making process and trying to help marketing and the CEO and our investors and our lenders sometime understand the trajectory of our business and where our where, where there's profit, where there's investment. And that's really I just again, that's what NetSuite does for us without question. 

 

00;26;55;28 - 00;27;21;13 

Unknown 

And it does it with more and more low-cost data that needs to be transformed into high value information. A big theme at SuiteWorld was, very unsurprisingly, AI. As the technology advances, where do you see it having the most potential for Raw Sugar? I went to SuiteWorld last year and I was excited about. 

 

00;27;21;13 - 00;27;46;06 

Unknown 

I came back and I spoke to a bunch of different stakeholders for our business, and I said, it's not really thereyet. This year at SuiteWorld, I could really see it. I could see it with some of the applications that seem obvious to me like exception management, automated coding, you know, a credit card bill. They should someone showed walked me through, impacting your cash flow. 

 

00;27;46;06 - 00;28;11;18 

Unknown 

I mean, within NetSuite, you've got your AR, you've got your app, you've got your order history, you can upload a demand plan. You should be able to do quality cash flow forecasting. And I think that appears to me to be on the horizon. The areas that are next level that I think NetSuite is going to arrive at sooner than later. 

 

00;28;11;20 - 00;28;52;06 

Unknown 

But where it will really impact our business, I think, is demand planning is a great example. And the reason is because I can kind of you really are talking about very large data sets now from very for a lot of different sources. And so if you can both be in the warehouse as well as the accumulator of the data, and then have the tools to kind of bring that together to express an opinion frankly, which is what I really will do, that will really allow a lot more information to be consumed a lot faster than maybe humans can even or potentially could do. 

 

00;28;52;13 - 00;29;18;05 

Unknown 

I think about a lot like Excel versus QuickBooks versus NetSuite, and then you've got stuff A has. NetSuite. But the a lot of the work we do right now, even though it happens in that suite, is still very Excel thinking. And I think, having the intelligence of AI should really kind of advance things very quickly. Yeah. 

 

00;29;18;05 - 00;29;25;12 

Unknown 

Let's get out of those spreadsheets over it. Sure. 

 

00;29;25;15 - 00;29;42;17 

Unknown 

NetSuite by Oracle. The number one cloud financial system is everything you need to grow all in one place. Financials, inventory, HR, and more. Make better decisions faster so you can do more and spend less. See how at NetSuite.com/pod. 

 

00;29;42;20 - 00;30;04;10 

Unknown 

Well, this leads in pretty well to our next question. What do you think the future of the finance function will look like? Yeah, you know, it starts with what I've always believed in and was lucky enough to get taught and introduced to, which is finance and accounting need to be always on the cutting edge of being a value-addpartner. 

 

00;30;04;13 - 00;30;33;06 

Unknown 

And, you know, partner internally. Partner regularly regulatory wise, but also external stakeholders and all the decisions need to make. So anything that brings that level of thought and decision-making ability is critical. And what I'm interviewing, you know, that I can teach someone how to take their prior knowledge and then apply it to Raw Sugars. 

 

00;30;33;06 - 00;31;07;18 

Unknown 

Business. I can teach them how to think like that's just unrealistic. And so, you know, we want to have fine members of our team and and a great example is, you know, and this isn't new, but, you know, it's becoming so easy with technology now with teams and zoom to use, coding from Asia, you know, not just for coding, but AP entry or billing or all these other areas that allows a low value commodity transaction to take place at a lower cost. 

 

00;31;07;21 - 00;31;28;17 

Unknown 

But the thinking still needs to happen. And the problems and or my analogy would be like, I'd say team is like, we should be using the system as our highway and we should spending 85% of our time, on the service road and the exceptions. And when we're spending time there, we should be asking the question, why is this an exception, and how do we get it back on the highway? 

 

00;31;28;20 - 00;32;01;23 

Unknown 

You know, what is what is what do we have to change in our process with our contract manufacturer? What do we have? Who do we have to talk to with our brick-and-mortar partner? Or what? How do we need to build between that suite and this partner? Like those are the things we should be doing. And then we should then be taking the information and constantly be thinking about what are ways to more objectively understand what subjectively we're assessing in the marketplace. 

 

00;32;01;23 - 00;32;33;22 

Unknown 

And I'll give you a perfect example, is we have a demand plan. So internally we assess three months, six months, 12 months what we're going to create inventory around. And yet we're also getting weekly data of what consumers are consuming. And so a year ago those things were not talking to each other. Today, leaderof demand planning has to speak to in meetings. 

 

00;32;33;24 - 00;33;11;26 

Unknown 

What is the relationship between the demand planning they are presenting and the consumption that they'reseeing? And we're able to do that in a data structure and that it's no extra work for them. It's really just telling them how those two different data sets are talking to each other. So it's a perfect example. You didn't need AI to do that, but putting an objective lens now we can understand how we're going to put our dollars into our demand plan relates to what the is telling us, because it used to just be the retailer told you that information and they're really not accountable for it. 

 

00;33;11;26 - 00;33;33;29 

Unknown 

And so they have an interest in telling you a big number to make sure you have inventory on hand, but then they're not accountable for it and they're not necessarily going to buy off of that. And they also might have notas strong of a demand planning team on their side. So us being able to tie our plans to what the consumer is telling us, well, that's really interesting. 

 

00;33;33;29 - 00;34;02;19 

Unknown 

And there's all kinds of more product development and marketing questions that also reside in that data, because that we're also running promotions at those times. So what kind of lifts are we getting? That's data. Those are answered. But there are also different fragrances we use and how they're being reacted to how seasonal they are. What is the reaction in different parts of the country, even, to our lip balm based on temperature and cold. 

 

00;34;02;26 - 00;34;40;29 

Unknown 

So all of these things are there to be mined and they become objective. If we, we spend the time to create the right structure around it. That's super interesting. I don't even think about, like, lip balm and temperature and everything like that, you know, it's I mean, that's and that's where I was going to come in because there are all these patterns in the data that, you know, it's also someone told me a long time ago, you know, the problem is connecting all of this data and all this computer power to value to margin of marginal cost versus marginal value. 

 

00;34;41;00 - 00;35;03;28 

Unknown 

The marginal cost has gone so far down to get information, but now we're just sitting in pools of data. And so how do we find those key pieces of information and pull them out of the data to inform us. That's really hard.And that's why, you know, computers will where I will go down a certain road, but it's still realizing patterns. 

 

00;35;04;00 - 00;35;29;03 

Unknown 

It's the questions that we have to ask and how I understand the brand. I think there's still a real big rolefinance, accounting, the whole team, frankly. And I'm especially interested in your answer to this question because you don't necessarily start at least on the traditional path. I mean, you had a liberal arts degree, dabbled in accounting, kind of, kind of like took different paths to where you are now. 

 

00;35;29;05 - 00;35;54;01 

Unknown 

What are you looking for when you're hiring finance talent and what skills do you think will become must haves in the future? Yeah. So, I like to think of myself as really open minded, but I'll be honest, if a recruiter settingme a hole said, and we've hired a county manager, we have a controller. We have all kinds of different roleshere. 

 

00;35;54;03 - 00;36;27;19 

Unknown 

I always am biased to someone who's worked in a consumer products company more than a company. And that's because just from my time in accounting, as well as my time as a CFO, there are so many different typesof accounting out there. You've got financial services, you've got not for profits. And so to have really good information, understanding of inventory and the relationship, the revenue, the receivables, the deductions, the promotions, things like that in our space. 

 

00;36;27;19 - 00;36;54;00 

Unknown 

It doesn't have to be beauty. It could be anyone who's selling to brick and mortar, and has the inventory. That'sthe first thing I usually ask for. It's not, if the recruiter says, I'm telling you, you should go meet this person. I would always take the meeting, but that's the first thing. If I were to be honest, I think the second and third are really kind of this secretive, raw sugar, and it makes me giggle. 

 

00;36;54;07 - 00;37;25;19 

Unknown 

Having been here at 11 and running down there, you know, wanting to make sure their culture continued and now we're at 40 and we feel like, how do we how do we continue? The culture is I think there are two qualities of a Raw Sugar employee. The first, which is so fun to work with, is I want to see that someone run towards the fire, that they're like a fire and that they that they feel something's happening in their business and they want to go towards it, not away from it. 

 

00;37;25;21 - 00;37;56;21 

Unknown 

And it's very measurable and very easy to see. In an interview. And when you have that now you're open forbusiness. And then the flip side of that is really are they friendly and curious? And the way we, as a leadership team think about that is how do we create a no blame culture? How do we make people feel really safe, like, really feel like when an order is missed or our fill rate goes down? 

 

00;37;56;23 - 00;38;19;19 

Unknown 

You know, that doesn't mean the operations team did anything wrong. It might go all the way back up to product development, but it might go all the way up to an executive who didn't make a decision early enough. And the timelines started to slip off because of indecision, which led to a holiday order not being ready to ship when it's, you know, got a very short window in the marketplace. 

 

00;38;19;21 - 00;38;43;13 

Unknown 

So how you do that is really challenging, but you can also see it and talk to people about the different partners they've worked with, the different relationships they've built in the workplace, how much they value those relationships. You know, those are people aren't going to change. I qualities like that. And when you understand they have those, then you kind of look for the functional skills. 

 

00;38;43;13 - 00;39;12;13 

Unknown 

And I wouldn't put any obviously prior accounting and finance is important obviously, or maybe not obviously, but unique experiences that the team don't have that are complementary. I worked for a long time ago on a farm and on the farm. Then I worked there for six months in college, and there was a period of time where my boss was eight years old, and I remember talking about it in one of my first interviews. 

 

00;39;12;13 - 00;39;39;22 

Unknown 

And the message I got from now is like, the person who knows, knows, and everyone's got a job to do here, and everyone should be an expert at something and better than everyone else at something. And when you see that level of excellence in someone, that they can really take something and own it. And it could be the copy machine, it could be their desire to be available and to do what the brand needs or to travel. 

 

00;39;39;24 - 00;40;04;14 

Unknown 

It can come in all these shapes and forms. It can also be in the accounting space to want to be an accountant, to really love being in accounting and, and, and I do like I don't love doing the accounting, but I love understanding it, and sharing to the other stakeholders like what this tells us about our business, about our margins, about our cash flow. 

 

00;40;04;16 - 00;40;28;10 

Unknown 

We've got our inventory. You know, all these decisions are going to be part of making Ross Sugar successful. I need to ask, what did you do on the farm? Oh, I the best if you said what is your best job you had was picking bananas because, bananas require are you out there? There are days where you put bags over the bananas. 

 

00;40;28;13 - 00;40;51;28 

Unknown 

There are days where you cut down the bananas and you, like, carry them and, you know, they can weigh like 100 pound a bushel. And then there are days where you have, like, a big machete and you cut down the trees. And, and I just remember, like, every day was it felt like I was a little kid. It was so much fun because every day was you were in this three day cycle where you were constantly moving through the grove, doing one of those three things. 

 

00;40;52;00 - 00;41;18;24 

Unknown 

I want to do the machete day. That sounds fun. Honestly, I, I, in my recollection, is the the taking the bananas, the butcher cutting it. It was a two-person job. And the way you did it was you had you had to tackle like into your shoulder, the bushel. And then just as you were making contact with the partner, had to slice it at the top so that it fell on to your shoulder. 

 

00;41;18;24 - 00;41;37;25 

Unknown 

And then it's 100 pounds, which is maybe not. And so then you would sprint to this truck and throw it out, and then you keep switching off. And that was also super fun. We might have surpassed my physical abilities there. Okay. I love it, though. I mean, you can turn to anyone and be like, I used to cut down bananas in a field. 

 

00;41;37;25 - 00;41;59;14 

Unknown 

Like, you can do this. You definitely can do this. And you can. Yeah, do the hard work. And that's like the run towards the fire. You know, you really see it. I mean, I love working with our team on the good days, and I love working with them on the tough days because they really care. But now in that they really feel there'ssomething they can do to make a difference. 

 

00;41;59;14 - 00;42;34;03 

Unknown 

So turning to kind of our 2025 agenda as a CFO, what are your top financial priorities in 2025? You know, that's that's a great question. We're just starting our budgeting cycle. And so we're just starting to have those conversations. We're actually all gathering next week. You know I think the first one is the consumer. I mentioned this at the end of the SuiteWorld talk, which is the bigger we get, the harder it is to really stay in contact with the customer. 

 

00;42;34;06 - 00;42;55;29 

Unknown 

And the customer is changing in so many ways. You know, we're leaving this inflationary period on the one hand, but they feel like they've lost their purchasing power yet. Consumer spending continues. And so you worry okay. Well how long can that continue. And at the other axis they're making different choices and evolving on the channel they want to be at. 

 

00;42;55;29 - 00;43;28;16 

Unknown 

And so for instance, we're moving into Shopify and that Shopify actually TikTok store through Shopify actually. But you know, being where the consumer is not just a necessity. It's a challenge, you know, and we need to keep assessing where that is. And then the obvious one is what are the products they want, you know, and what are the categories that we're positioned to be successful and to meet our mission and be impactful. 

 

00;43;28;16 - 00;43;57;12 

Unknown 

So I know, you know, those are more business, I think from a finance perspective, you know, I don't look at macro trends. I've never worked in a business large enough. I've always worked in the middle market. And sofor us, the one thing I'm looking at every Monday is what was last week's results versus the prior four weeks, average results versus the average 13-week results. 

 

00;43;57;12 - 00;44;19;17 

Unknown 

And I'm talking about at a category level and a channel partner level. And then all the way down to the skill level, because those will tell you your brand health, you know, those will tell you, now there are questions to be asking where their promotions and what's going on and what's going on in the competitive sector. Are they promoting but keeping that kind of week to week, quarter to quarter view? 

 

00;44;19;17 - 00;44;43;26 

Unknown 

I've found that's the best way for me to be the best kind of leader in the organization. It's kind of interesting, what you mentioned around customer preferences and how those trends are changing just because it is something that seems very active right now because we are seeing, you know, younger ages getting into beauty and having very specific preferences around beauty products. 

 

00;44;43;26 - 00;45;06;03 

Unknown 

I mean, speaking of Sephora, Sephora is just kind of overwhelmed with preteens and young teenagers. Like, how do you how do you keep track of that all? How do you like gauge where things are going? Because I can yeah. No, I think it's, having worked, you know, very closely with Sephora almost ten years ago, you know, I think, I don't know if I would say I'm surprised. 

 

00;45;06;06 - 00;45;26;26 

Unknown 

I'm surprised, let's put it that way. Where the cohort of teenagers and early teens, 13 or 14 year olds, when you go into a store, you know, one of the things that's a joy of my job, frankly, is I get to attend any meeting that I want to attend because I believe it'll help inform me and doing my job. 

 

00;45;26;26 - 00;45;56;05 

Unknown 

And so a lot of what I do is sit in with product development, sit in with the marketing team, we get research delivered to us some quarterly about the households that are purchasing us and how they change some monthly about, our POS and the insights about them. And then we actually also get surveys and stuff. So we get panel data on who our customers are and how they're changing, what their families and incomes and, and all of those things. 

 

00;45;56;05 - 00;46;25;28 

Unknown 

So they all inform the product development, the marketing message, all of these pieces to the puzzle. So, I'lljust have a lot of humility. It's like, you know, I listen a lot. I don't say a lot in those meetings. One thing we keep hearing about, I mean, I mean, this ties perfectly into it, kind of how we've been saying the CFO is evolving to become that strategic business partner and, like, collaborating across departments, attending different meetings, working to understand the whole business. 

 

00;46;26;00 - 00;46;56;17 

Unknown 

How are you planning on fostering stronger alignment between finance and other departments? So in 2025, such as operations, marketing, HR, to achieve all those overall goals? I only know our culture. I know I'veworked in a lot of other organizations, so I know to contrast it starting with our CEO. But all of us are really like believe strongly to include our lieutenants and our lieutenants, lieutenant, in whatever we're doing, you know? 

 

00;46;56;17 - 00;47;29;19 

Unknown 

And so there are very we do have the leadership meetings, but they're very few meetings that everyone's not welcome to attend who can feel like it drives value for them. And not only that, from a travel perspective, formy role within my purview, our conversations with our lenders, our controller drives a lot more in that conversation, and I encourage them to have our county manager on it, because I'll listen and I'll highlight parts of the business I think are appropriate. 

 

00;47;29;19 - 00;47;49;04 

Unknown 

But one of the ways you get people to move up the ladder is to expose them. You know, I was very lucky, I think partly because of some of the choices that I make and rightly because people leaving. But I get exposed to a lot of things really early in my career, had the opportunity to make mistakes, survive them, move forward. 

 

00;47;49;06 - 00;48;13;23 

Unknown 

But the ad exposure is how people grow. And as we look to the year ahead, are there any challenges or risks that you're anticipating? Oh, yeah. No. You know, I think the number one, we've gotten big enough that people notice and that means our competitors too. And so we have different parts of our business that are very successful. 

 

00;48;13;26 - 00;48;37;23 

Unknown 

But, you know, it doesn't take a lot for our Unilever or Procter and Gamble to make a big wave, you know, come through with a big boat and decide this is an area we want to have an impact in, and we're going to look over multiple year horizon and, and kind of take share. And so I think that's always the fear in the consumer space. 

 

00;48;37;23 - 00;49;03;28 

Unknown 

But then the same is in the one you have even less controller is consumer preferences. And are you connected to what. They're the consumer is looking for now. Like I said, our job, like in the finance and accounting place, is to make sure in a timely fashion, we're gaining the insights we need to as best as we can understand that information. 

 

00;49;03;28 - 00;49;24;04 

Unknown 

And so I think that's the way I think about it, is how quick we can turn information, how consumable can it be? A lot of it is now on a dashboard. You know, that's something that anyone can refresh, or it's a dashboard that highlights, key decision makers, the areas that they're focused on. Like, that's what we talk a lot about. 

 

00;49;24;04 - 00;49;45;29 

Unknown 

How do we create those moments where people are busy lives from the CEO all the way down across the organization, sales, marketing, ops? And, how do we give them the information in a timely manner in a consumable way that can just help them create better decisions for us? Yeah. Making spark know versions of data. 

 

00;49;46;02 - 00;50;14;01 

Unknown 

Yeah. For sure. What role do you see technology and automation playing in the finance department in 2025? You know, I think there are things that are in the multinational world that as technology, it's just like in our homes, things that start in the office, make it into our homes, are now really accessible in the middle market.And so, you know, things like scans, invoice scanning. 

 

00;50;14;01 - 00;50;36;04 

Unknown 

I think that's something that seems obvious to someone at a multinational corporation. But a middle market company has struggled to find a way to implement that technology and to get the return on their investment. You look at places like concur, travel expense and all these things. They make a lot of sense when you are a very large organization. 

 

00;50;36;07 - 00;51;07;27 

Unknown 

But the implementation costs have come down so much. I think the cloud making not everything client based but basically cloud based and more of a service provider, all of these areas, it's one of the things, I think, why that suite's not only a great product, but a great pricing model, especially for private equity. You don't have to look at it and go, oh my God, it's going to take a year to implement, and we're going to have to turn over our business processes, and we're going to have to write $1 million check. 

 

00;51;08;04 - 00;51;37;29 

Unknown 

Like, that's really hard for a private equity firm that wants to do a five-year investment. You know, it's really hard to do the math, but if you can get into NetSuite in 4 to 6 months and it's an annual fee, and a one timecost to get in, it becomes a lot more interesting. And I think that functionality look my expectation hope, but also expectation of NetSuite is they keep shrinking where the enterprise software is, where do those technologies are. 

 

00;51;37;29 - 00;52;04;03 

Unknown 

And making them super accessible and easy for smaller organizations, smaller teams to use. And, that that'smy hope. My wish. And I see it happening. So I, I'm very happy with the platform that we're on. And looking at your current finance team, do you have any plans to upskill or reskill them kind of in the next year as like we talked about the finance function sort of shifts? 

 

00;52;04;06 - 00;52;26;11 

Unknown 

I don't think so. One of the things I'm really proud of and I in budget season, I always bring it up, is we have the same number of heads as we did in, I think, 2021. Oh, wow. So so we've gone through this growth, we'veshifted around talent and people have laughed in all these things, but from a headcount. 

 

00;52;26;13 - 00;52;53;09 

Unknown 

And so, you know, my hope or my North Star is development and technology together can make us headcount neutral no matter how big we get. And that's the goal. And I think that'll be you know, how we the baseline assumption as we approach 2025 and, and every year ahead. Now that also means we have to invest in training. 

 

00;52;53;14 - 00;53;12;28 

Unknown 

We have to invest in technology. We have to make different types of investments, investment. But what thatreally does is it creates an amazing place to work because people have an opportunity to grow and not just get stagnant in the position they're in. So that's kind of the North Star for me, and it doesn't always follow that way. 

 

00;53;12;28 - 00;53;37;28 

Unknown 

But for us, it's been that way for a while. I like that term headcount neutral. I feel like we could build like an advertising campaign around that. Yeah, I hear you. All right, well, speaking of technology plans, any plans on the docket for the next year? Any new financial technologies building out existing capabilities? You know, we just had this conversation two weeks ago. 

 

00;53;38;00 - 00;54;03;08 

Unknown 

Oh. Timely. Someone who works with me and my message was, we've done such a great job of implementing technologies to meet the needs of the business. I'm much more interested in maximizing over the next year than implementing new things. We just finished our first, really 12 months on a trade promotion tool, and it has so much more potential to drive decision making. 

 

00;54;03;08 - 00;54;27;06 

Unknown 

So I said, look, let's focus on that. We use power BI right now as a data warehouse. And how do we create more information flowing quicker into NetSuite Planning and Budgeting. We implemented fourth quarter of last year. Every quarter we're evolving. And now we're having a larger conversation within the demand planning function. So we have these robust tools. 

 

00;54;27;09 - 00;54;49;09 

Unknown 

I want to make sure we're evolving, rather than moving on to the next great thing. And you kind of touched on this with keeping up with customer preferences, kind of beating out the competition a little. But does Raw Sugar as a company have any overall chain objectives going into 2025? Outside of that? You know, I think that's part of what we're doing in NetSuite. 

 

00;54;49;11 - 00;55;26;12 

Unknown 

You know, we're always from a look from a product development perspective, from a channel, you know, where we sell those, where those are over one-year cycles. And it can be as much as a three year cycle, in your funnel, I think our brand and our the awareness of our brand and how we acquire new customers and how we get them to have experiences with our brands and, and have those and then potentially even going across categories because we, we are uniquely across a lot of categories. 

 

00;55;26;15 - 00;55;45;15 

Unknown 

Those are kind of the challenges that we face now as we kind of are in more places and trying to find new audiences, geographically across the country, sometimes in other countries, there's a lot of people who don't know about Raw Sugar, and that's a big challenge for us. I do love that you get into the pet space and called it for kids. 

 

00;55;45;18 - 00;56;22;03 

Unknown 

That works. That's how I feel. And that's how John, who brought up the idea to us about a year ago, you know, every not everyone, but a lot of people have dogs. We're going to be doing an awesome thing. One of the ways we're going to create that awareness and stay true to our values, we're going to start a program where first in LA, and then if it works well, Will is, putting our for kids products at shelters so that when people adopt pets, they have an opportunity to go home with a shampoo, but also have an opportunity to experience our brand and our values. 

 

00;56;22;03 - 00;56;41;13 

Unknown 

So, that's something that we're going to start piloting as, as we come to the end of the year. But it's some typeof things, that I think make it awesome to work here. We do really good staff. We also work with a group for water. For people. Water is our number one ingredient. So we help the well in places that don't have enough access to water. 

 

00;56;41;13 - 00;57;11;28 

Unknown 

And then we work with an organization called eco. So I would recommend any business person look it up. Got an amazing founder who created this business model of collecting use of bars from hotels, melting them down to then create new soap bars, and employing disadvantaged people in Southeast Asia and Africa. And nowdoes it at a very large scale, partnering with Procter and Gamble and other multinationals, with their excess. 

 

00;57;11;28 - 00;57;35;26 

Unknown 

So we worked with some really cool organizations, and it's important that we make a difference. Yeah. And for our listeners, the website is Raw Sugar living.com. And I'll put the link in the show notes, but it's just a really cool, cool website. I kind of demonstrate some of the stuff you're doing and just really interesting. I was going through it researching for this podcast and it was just I was very engaged. 

 

00;57;35;27 - 00;57;57;21 

Unknown 

Like, it's just a lot of really cool initiatives that you're doing. Thank you. Yeah. No, no, this is the most proud I'veever been of working any place and for a brand for team. And then, you know, the impact we have and there'sso much more for us to do. So it's fun to share our story and, it's fun to share my perspective on being a CFO. 

 

00;57;57;24 - 00;58;28;11 

Unknown 

Well, to wrap things up, I mean, a lot of our listeners kind of come on to hear a lot about how business leaders got to where they are, their experience, their advice, different tips that they have. So as we close out, are there any final thoughts or takeaways that you want to leave our listeners with? Yeah, I mean, I think I'll end where we started, which is, you know, we talked about going to UCLA and taking a bunch of liberal arts classes and just enough accounting to sit for the CPA exam. 

 

00;58;28;11 - 00;58;55;24 

Unknown 

And, you know, I think being unique in the accounting and finance space, but to also bring a point of view and the skills to find your own point of view makes you really valuable. And people notice leadership notices, the person who's paying attention to the data and not just kicking it out. And I think accounting sometimes people will get lost in that. 

 

00;58;55;24 - 00;59;16;10 

Unknown 

They don't think anyone's looking or anyone's listening. And so they don't think about to, to find those insights or find those opportunities to change the process because you see it and using your voice so, you know, find your way to have an impact, run towards the fire and then realize you're making something and there's a real purpose behind those numbers. 

 

00;59;16;12 - 00;59;33;04 

Unknown 

And they're not just numbers. I think all those things have served me really well. Made my career really fun.That is such an amazing note to end on. Thank you so much for taking the time, Jonathan. This was really fun.Thank you. 

 

00;59;33;07 - 00;59;53;13 

Unknown 

That brings us to the end of another great episode. First of all, a CFO who works on a banana farm with a machete. That was a first for me. We always say that CFOs have to be on the cutting edge, but that just takes it to a whole new level. In all seriousness, such a great opportunity to talk to Jonathan in this episode. 

 

00;59;53;15 - 01;00;13;17 

Unknown 

The health and beauty space is moving so incredibly fast, and it's fascinating to hear how they are using that suite to keep up. A huge thanks to Jonathan for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with us. And as always, a big thanks to our wonderful editing team over at Oracle and to all of you for tuning in. 

 

01;00;13;20 - 01;00;34;10 

Unknown 

If you want more episodes just like this one, make sure you subscribe to our channel and give us a rating and review. Until next time! You just listen to the NetSuite Podcast. Be sure to tune in every week with more NetSuite developments, stories, and insights into the benefits of one integrated system to help you run your business.