In this episode, Suzanne Sengelmann, the new CEO of Lundberg Family Farms, talks about how experiences both inside and outside the company prepared her to step into the top role somewhat unexpectedly. This episode also features part 1 of our conversation with Rich and Brian Rogenski of Youngstown, Ohio-based Legacy Tire & Auto Repair, who discuss rebuilding a family business after splitting from a previous venture, bringing the next generation into leadership and balancing old-school instincts with new ideas and technology investments. We also continue our conversation with Peter Stenehjem, G4 CEO of Watford City, North Dakota-based First International Bank & Trust. Peter discusses the leadership transition at FIBT, the family’s decision to appoint a next-generation family member as CEO and how the bank’s western North Dakota roots continue to shape its culture more than a century after its founding. He also explains why the family has expanded beyond traditional banking into other entrepreneurial ventures.
Interested in being a guest or have a topic you’d like to hear us discuss? Contact host Zack Needles, editor-in-chief of Family Business Magazine, at: zneedles@familybusinessmagazine.com.
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Guests
Suzanne Sengelmann
Suzanne Sengelmann is the CEO of fourth-generation Lundberg Family Farms. She is the first female CEO in the company’s history and she succeeds Craig Stevenson, the company’s first non-family CEO. Since joining Lundberg as Chief Growth Officer in the fall of 2022, Sengelmann has led the development of a bold, enterprise-wide growth strategy, strengthened Lundberg’s ROC™ leadership position, redefined its brand voice and architecture to resonate with today’s consumers and enhanced the company’s long-term strategic planning.
Rich Rogenski
Rich Rogenski is the co-founder and a co-owner of Legacy Tire & Auto Repair.
Brian Rogenski
Brian Rogenski is the G2 co-owner and shop manager of Legacy Tire & Auto Repair.
Peter Stenehjem
Peter Stenehjem, a fourth-generation community banker, was born and raised in the heart of North Dakota’s badlands, where he grew up during the height of the region’s oil boom. His journey in banking began in 2000 when he joined First International Bank & Trust (FIBT) as a teller, and quickly demonstrated his expertise in both business and personal banking. Peter quickly advanced in his career from lender to market president and ultimately became CEO in 2025. Throughout his career, he has become well-versed in the unique challenges and opportunities facing the communities FIBT serves.
TRANSCRIPT
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Having led the growth part of the business, I just had such an understanding.
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I knew, I know where some of the bodies are buried, I actually buried some myself, right?
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So you just have, you know, huge learning curve for me still on the farming side and
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on the op side.
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I wasn’t as engaged, although I led innovation and if you’re going to lead innovation,
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you have to really understand how your operations work.
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But getting really down and dirty with the cash flow, with the balance sheet, with the
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profitability of the company has been the biggest difference and step change.
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But I do feel really prepared for it.
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That was Suzanne Sengelman, the new CEO of Lundberg Family Farms, talking about how
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experiences both inside and outside the company prepared her to step into the top
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role at a multi-generational family business.
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We’ll hear more from Suzanne later in the episode.
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Welcome to the Family Business Business Family podcast.
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I’m your host, Zach Needles, editor in chief of Family Business magazine.
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This episode also features part one of my conversation with Rich and Brian Roganski
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of Youngstown, Ohio based Legacy Tire and Auto Repair, who discussed rebuilding
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a family business after splitting from a previous venture, bringing the next
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generation into leadership and balancing old school instincts with new ideas and
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technology investments.
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But first, in this interview, we continue our conversation with Peter Stenegen,
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G4 CEO of Watford City, North Dakota based First International Bank and Trust.
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Peter discusses the methodical leadership transition at FIBT, the family’s
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decision making process around whether to appoint a family or non-family CEO,
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and how the bank’s roots in western North Dakota continue to shape its
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culture more than a century after its founding.
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He also talks about why the family has embraced entrepreneurship beyond
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traditional banking.
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Your dad was in the CEO role for for like 35 years, right, almost?
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Yeah, I have some rather big shoes to fill.
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So, you know, I talk about him starting.
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I think we were, you know, 40 million when he took over.
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And, you know, when I succeeded him after 35 years, you know, we’re
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flirting with about six billion.
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And so, you know, that’s a pretty significant growth in shoes to follow.
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But yes, my dad was in the role for 35 years.
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He ascended into that role from my grandpa, Lee, his father.
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And so some great shoes to fill.
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We’re we’re very methodical when it came to the family transition.
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And so that was, you know, kind of done over a period of years, I guess,
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because we didn’t want to necessarily, you know, go into it and just like
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rip the bandaid, because that’s not necessarily good for either person.
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And so it’s a little bit more of a laddered approach.
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And we even worked to the third party to kind of help us navigate that.
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I started taking over some ownership and supervising
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executives a number of years ago.
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So we kind of had a quiet transition before we went more public
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facing with the true transition.
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And I just ended up picking up a few more direct
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reports at that point in time.
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But, you know, very fun to continue to work with my dad closely.
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He’s still our chairman.
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He just probably picks and chooses what he likes to work on a little bit more.
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He still loves a lot of the credit aspects, too, and seeing people
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and going on customer calls.
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I get to just chair a few more meetings now, I guess,
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and he gets to participate.
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So we’ve we’ve kind of, you know, rotated roles, I guess, a little bit.
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Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think I think that methodical approach
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is so is so important, especially in your business, because to your point,
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you’re stepping into an organization that’s way bigger and more complex
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than even what your dad stepped into initially.
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And obviously he built it up to be what it is.
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But, you know, that’s one of the reasons why we’re seeing a lot of family
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businesses go to outside CEOs, because you get to this next generation
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and the business is just totally different and the world is totally different
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than what it was a generation previous.
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And so it sounds like we we honestly had some of those family discussions.
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You know, do we do we go internal as with the CEO?
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Do we go family, non-family?
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Do you go external?
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To be honest, like we ran a relative, relatively dynamic process around that.
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You know, ultimately, I was was chosen and selected, you know, with obviously
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had to have the backing of my other siblings were also my co-owners.
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And so, you know, we tried to run a fairly dynamic process
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because ultimately we wanted what’s best for our overall organization.
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To your point, you know, we’re a complex, you know, multi-state,
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you know, multibillion dollar organization.
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And so we wanted to get that one right, for sure.
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Obviously, it’s something I’m passionate about, as you can tell.
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Like, I love banking.
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I love carrying on our family tradition.
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But also, you know, I want to make sure that this gets passed
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from the fourth generation to the fifth generation as well.
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Yeah, definitely, definitely.
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Well, it sounds like you guys did a great job of of preparing
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for this transition and making sure that it was something that
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that you are obviously qualified to do, but also passionate about doing,
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you know, because sometimes there’s that assumption that
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the next gen is going to take over eventually.
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Then you get to that point.
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The next gen is not interested, you know.
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So I think that’s that’s a great story.
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And I wanted to go back to, you know, you mentioned this
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in the beginning and the origin story of the business.
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Your great grandfather founded the bank with that relatively,
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at least in today’s dollars, a very small loan in rural North Dakota.
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How would you say that like that origin story has continued to shape
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the bank’s culture and your decision making around around growth
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and investment and things like that today?
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Well, I think it just kind of shows, you know, some significant hard work.
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Because if you think about, you know, going through the Great Depression.
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So our our institution was one of 19 banks in McKinsey County at the time.
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Fast forward into the Great Depression.
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And we were the only bank to survive in McKinsey County.
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So it from 19 banks in the county to one.
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And most of the hours around, you know, kind of our relatives
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bootstrapping, you know, leveraging whatever they can,
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you know, working their tails off.
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And we never had a loss of a depositors dollar.
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So if you think about banks back in the day, if you had, you know,
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$100 in your account, they only had to really pay you back 60 or 70.
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You know, we always paid back 100 cents on the dollar.
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That it’s something that we are still very proud of.
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So like that early aspect started shaping us
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in just the grittiness of, you know, being from Western
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North Dakota, if you’ve ever been out in the Badlands area, like it’s,
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you know, you have some some some significant factors.
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And then I think if you fast forward, you know, the Bakken oil boom
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is dead center to where, you know, we were kind of founded.
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And so we’ve seen, you know, some growth just because of some of the
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economics that have happened around us.
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But granted, they found oil in Western North Dakota in the 50s,
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you know, and then they had another oil boom kind of the 70s and 80s.
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And now it’s more technology based.
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What’s happening in the mid 2000s, essentially.
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But our bank has benefited from that as well.
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You know, we’ve seen some significant growth and we’ve seen.
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And what that means is really we’re seeing a lot of our customers doing well.
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I mean, that’s where banks growth comes from,
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is you’re seeing your clients do well, you’re bringing on new ones,
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you’re retaining relationships.
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And so I think early on, we continue to see our relatives
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really focus on, you know, long term relationships.
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I mean, we have clients that they’re also for generations
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of working with FIBT, and that’s something we’re very proud of.
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Yeah, that’s excellent.
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I love that, too, that idea that.
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It’s important to continue those generational transitions
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in the family business, because your clients, like you said,
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your clients are having those same generational transitions,
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and they need to know that there’s a future right at the bank.
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They need to know that there’s another generation coming
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who’s going to continue this legacy.
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So I love that approach.
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And and I wanted to I wanted to end on on this question
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because just because I think it’s really an interesting
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thing that you guys are doing.
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So the bank has made acquisitions beyond other banks
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and financial institutions, right?
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So restaurants and technology companies.
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And what’s the strategic thinking behind those moves and sort of
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how do they fit in with the family’s long term vision?
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Yeah, I guess.
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And probably what I’ll mostly center on is is Coda Pay.
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So we we know that, you know, banking is, you know,
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constantly changing, right?
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Like and we’ve seen all kinds of changes
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throughout our history and our industry is going through
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some significant change.
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If you think about even 20, 30 years ago,
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there’s 18000 banks in the country.
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And now we’re down to less than 5000, essentially.
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So, you know, a lot of M&A activity.
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And so we looked at it like, how are we going to be successful
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long term? And we felt that we needed to, you know,
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maybe also find some of our niches.
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And we decided to go into the payment space.
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And so we acquired a company about eight years ago,
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which is now rebranded Coda Pay.
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Coda Pay is in the payment space.
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This is where we punch above our weight class, essentially.
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So we’re about six billion in total assets on the bank size.
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We moved one hundred and twenty four billion dollars
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worth of payments last year, 60 million transactions.
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We have one hundred and seven thousand customers.
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You know, we roughly run, you know, one point to one point
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five unique payroll events per month.
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And so we we run a lot of payroll for companies.
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The cool part is Coda Pay is a white labeled company.
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You’d never necessarily know that we’re maybe even involved.
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But, you know, we work with a lot of payroll providers
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throughout the U.S. We do business in all 50 states.
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What that’s also done is that’s, you know, given us
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a development team, which is where we’ve been able
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to be a little bit more innovative.
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And so we’ve launched our version of banking as a service,
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which we’ve branded Cavenu.
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Cavenu so far has two, you know, live clients on there.
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And roughly we’ll probably onboard two more this year.
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You know, we’ve been careful with banking as a service
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just because it’s been a little bit of a buzzword in the industry
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and it’s gotten some banks in trouble.
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But in reality, Coda Pay is kind of a banking
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as a service industry as well.
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Already, that’s been around for 30 years.
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And so we, you know, have kind of read a lot of the cease
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and desist and all the bad things that have happened
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out in the industry and use that as our playbook of what not to do.
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And the cool part is Coda Pay, you know,
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it’s given us a diverse revenue stream.
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We also have a mineral tech platform called Mineral Tracker,
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which is, you know, kind of in that same realm.
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I mean, we we have we’re maybe one of the only banks in the country
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that has oil and gas attorneys and petroleum engineers on staff.
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And so we have, you know, some cool capabilities.
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But, you know, it’s just because of, you know, kind of where we were founded.
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We wanted to have some expertise in some niche areas.
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And so you mentioned restaurants.
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As you can probably tell, our family is entrepreneurial by nature.
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And so when we were when we were building a new,
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you know, headquarters in Watford City,
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we felt that that small town at the time, it’s not a small town anymore.
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And I was growing up as like less than 2000 people.
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Well, boom happened.
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Now there’s over 2000 kids just in the school district.
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But we wanted to, you know, at the time, help the small town out
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and get a nicer restaurant and a movie theater and banquet space.
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And we weren’t finding the right fit for somebody to help partner with.
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And so, you know, we just decided to do it on our own.
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And so when you think about banking, like what what pairs with banking?
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And so we’re trying to pick a name for our restaurant.
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We’re like, oh, Bank Robber sounds kind of cool.
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This is Western North Dakota.
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So we named it Outlaws Bar and Grill.
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And so that started some restaurant aspects.
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And then we have a brewery that it’s called Stone Home Brewing Company.
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So as I mentioned earlier, our last name Stenjam translates to Stone Home.
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That’s where the brewery name came from.
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If you ever come to, you know, North Dakota
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and you see some banks and breweries in the same building, that’s us.
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In this interview, we hear from Rich Roganski and his son
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Brian Roganski of Legacy Tire and Auto Repair
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about rebuilding a family business after a painful split
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within the family enterprise.
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A few years ago, one branch of the family was effectively
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pushed out of the original company and faced the prospect
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of walking away from a business built over decades.
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Instead, Rich and his family chose to start over,
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relaunching under the Legacy Tire and Auto Repair name
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and rebuilding the business from the ground up while bringing
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the next generation into leadership and investing in new technology
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and capabilities for the future.
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Hi, Brian. Hi, Rich.
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Thanks so much for joining me today.
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It’s our pleasure, Zach. We’re happy to be here.
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Excellent. Well, I’m excited to hear this story.
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And Rich, why don’t I start with you here?
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If you don’t mind, just give it a little bit of the history
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of the family business and talking about the roots of Legacy Tire
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and Auto Repair.
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Well, Legacy Tire was born out of another company
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that my father and I started.
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And for various reasons,
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we had to separate from that company.
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I actually my wife chose the name Legacy
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as of we wanted to hand this down to our children.
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My son, Brian, works in the business.
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My daughter, Stephanie, is going to be doing our marketing
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and we have two grandchildren also that I would love to see
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come into business.
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I’m not sure Brian would, but I would love to see them involved
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in it someday if I lived that long.
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That’s excellent. I love that.
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That’s why it’s called Legacy Tire and Auto Repair,
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because Legacy is a term that we use so frequently in our business
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and what we do to talk about that desire to pass the business
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down to the next generation.
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So I love that you actually named the business
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that it’s so cool.
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And without asking you to reopen Old Women’s too much,
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are you able to just walk us through a little bit of that moment
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when the previous family business split
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and how that led to the decision to start Legacy?
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I feel that I was very apprehensive at first.
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And if it wasn’t for my wife and my children,
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that would have probably been a battle I would not have fought.
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They were so supportive of me,
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along with the employees of this store at that time.
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They wanted to work for us.
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So it was apprehensive, but at the same time,
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it was terribly exciting too.
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It was a whole new venture where people were going to accept us.
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We didn’t know, but we went at it all out.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And for those that don’t know,
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this was a situation where you were obviously,
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you were working with other family members
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and you just decided to kind of part ways.
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You have differences of opinion and you just decided
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we’re gonna do two different businesses here.
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Is that basically how it was?
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That was a very good part of it, yes.
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And it worked out really super well for us.
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I’m so pleased at the results of it.
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Yeah, excellent.
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And so, Brian, let’s talk about this
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because I always love to hear the next gen story
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because a lot of times,
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the next gens grow up around the business
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and either that makes them really wanna join the business
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or really not wanna join the business, right?
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So for you, just tell me a little bit
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about how you came to be involved.
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Turned 18 and he said, you need to get a job.
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All right, fair enough.
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Yeah, yeah, you know what?
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That’s the story we hear very often, actually.
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So, excellent.
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And you grew up around the business, I guess.
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At that point, you were sort of ingrained in you.
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Oh yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I basically was given two choices.
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You can go lay brick with your uncle
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or you can work on cars down here.
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Okay, yeah, I can imagine that working on cars
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is probably a little more enticing.
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And so, you step into that next generation role,
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I imagine you had to sort of work your way up
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and now you have more of a leadership role.
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How has jumping into that role
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and working with your father
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shaped the way you look at risk,
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ownership, and responsibility?
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Like this is your business now too.
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How has that sort of changed your perspective on,
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if it has changed, on risk, ownership, and responsibility?
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It gives me many sleepless nights.
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Yeah, I can imagine.
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I don’t like the big chair.
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He doesn’t like the big chair
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but he’s been making the big chair decisions.
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He does kind of say, well, I’d like to do this.
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Fine, go ahead and do it.
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Do it.
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When we first switched over and became Legacy,
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Brian had been working at another shop
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and he found out how far behind we actually were.
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And at that time, he said,
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we need this equipment, this equipment,
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and this equipment.
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He said, okay, get a list, let’s price it, find out.
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And we moved forward.
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We spent an awful lot of money on scan tools
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and now we’re able to program the keys for customers
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when they lose their key fobs and what have you.
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We’re able to do that work.
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We’re now able to program the computers
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that are in the cars,
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which was something we had to send out.
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And unfortunately, Brian’s really thinking
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into the future and thinking of expansion,
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which I kind of agree with him, we do need to do.
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Yeah.
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Well, it’s really interesting
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because even some of the huge, huge family businesses
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that we talk to have these policies where they say,
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if you’re a next gen, you have to go work somewhere
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else from one of our competitors
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or somewhere else in the industry.
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And then hopefully you’ll come back to us
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and bring what you learned.
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And it sounds like that’s exactly what happened
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with Brian, whether it was a requirement or not,
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maybe it wasn’t, but just that he went out,
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he saw how another shop is doing things
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and came back and brought that to you.
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But Rich, you mentioned like Brian has ideas
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and you just basically tell him,
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hey, all right, let’s run with it.
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That’s pretty rare.
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Do you ever wrestle with this idea of,
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well, that’s not how I have done things
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up until this point.
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Is there ever a point where Brian wants to change things
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or move things into the future
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and you feel like reluctance?
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Well, I’m reluctant, but I also stop and think about it.
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And one of Brian’s big things was working towards efficiency.
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He wanted us to be as efficient as possible.
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And all the suggestions he’s made so far have worked out
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even though he would care to death
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that a lot of them would bomb,
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they all worked out for him.
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The whining you did for the new POS,
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oh my goodness.
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Well, having ideas that actually turn out to be good ideas
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is helpful for building some confidence
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that you can come up with more new ideas.
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So I think that’s great.
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But Rich, when you first went out on your own,
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were there challenges in terms of rebuilding trust
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with customers and employees?
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You’re sort of starting over again in a lot of ways.
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I was very concerned that the customer base
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would not accept us as the new company.
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And my wife had the excellent marketing idea
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to promote ourselves as same great people,
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same great service.
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We’ve been very accepted by the community
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and we were picking up new customers every day.
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Excellent.
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And Rich, it sounds like from the way you’ve been talking
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about the way you work with Brian
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and the way you work with Mary, your wife,
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I mean, you’re very receptive
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to other people’s input and ideas.
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And it doesn’t seem like a my way
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or the highway type of guy.
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Is that something that, did you grow up that way?
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Did you have, was your dad like that?
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Were your parents like that?
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Or is it something that you’ve kind of decided
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like, I’m gonna be that way.
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I’m gonna be receptive to other people’s ideas.
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I hate to say it this way,
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but when working with my father,
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any idea I had was a bad idea.
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Yeah, well that’s common for sure.
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Yeah.
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And so you kind of made a conscious effort
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to not be that way, it sounds like.
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Right.
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And a lot of times their ideas
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are just something I never thought of.
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And if I like it, we’re gonna implement it.
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And if I don’t like it, I will let them try it.
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And they’re either right or they’re not.
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In this interview, Suzanne Sengelman
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discusses unexpectedly becoming CEO
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of Lundberg Family Farms
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after serving as the company’s chief growth officer.
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She also discusses how her background
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in consumer brands and startups prepared her for the role
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and why understanding cash flow, profitability
437
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and operations has been critical
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to stepping into leadership at a family owned business.
439
00:22:09.580 –> 00:22:11.100
Suzanne, thanks so much for joining me.
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Good morning, you’re welcome.
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Thanks for having me.
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Absolutely, I’m excited to chat with you.
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And before we get into your work at Lundberg,
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let’s talk a little bit about your career path
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before joining Lundberg Family Farms.
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If you don’t mind telling me a little bit about that.
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Not at all.
448
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So mostly I’m a CPG brand builder,
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but I did start my career 100 years ago
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as a finance major from school.
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So I did finance for three years.
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And the only reason I start with that
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is I just feel like that background is so beneficial.
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I tell my boys that all the time.
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I’m like, you have to understand your profitability
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and margin and that type of thing
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if you’re actually gonna be successful in business.
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Right after that, I moved into brand building at Clorox
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and worked on just about every brand in the company
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and Kingsford Charcoal, Hidden Valley and GLAAD,
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all of that, water filtration.
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After I left Clorox,
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I became a chief marketing officer
464
00:23:07.060 –> 00:23:08.260
at Angie’s Boom Chicka Pop.
465
00:23:08.400 –> 00:23:10.300
They’re ready to eat popcorn.
466
00:23:10.300 –> 00:23:12.360
Met Dan and Angie Bastion,
467
00:23:12.580 –> 00:23:15.660
who are the best people I’ve ever met in my entire life.
468
00:23:15.720 –> 00:23:16.740
Beautiful founders.
469
00:23:17.380 –> 00:23:20.120
Really lived the mission and purpose
470
00:23:20.120 –> 00:23:21.340
of Better For You Food
471
00:23:21.340 –> 00:23:24.420
and creating a culture internally
472
00:23:24.960 –> 00:23:26.840
that also represented the mission,
473
00:23:27.020 –> 00:23:28.300
which was kind of the first time
474
00:23:28.300 –> 00:23:29.920
that I had had a chance to experience
475
00:23:29.920 –> 00:23:32.360
what I’m almost calling like a 360 mission.
476
00:23:32.820 –> 00:23:34.860
Internal, everything was the same.
477
00:23:35.480 –> 00:23:39.600
So fell in love with just that whole proposition.
478
00:23:40.300 –> 00:23:43.280
Then I did a couple of startups, COVID hit
479
00:23:44.580 –> 00:23:46.500
and mayhem in the Bay Area.
480
00:23:46.940 –> 00:23:52.460
But in about 2022, a good friend of mine from Clorox,
481
00:23:52.660 –> 00:23:55.080
Craig Stevenson, had accepted the position
482
00:23:55.080 –> 00:23:56.480
at Lundberg Family Farms.
483
00:23:56.800 –> 00:23:58.880
Lundberg had made the choice at that point,
484
00:23:58.980 –> 00:24:02.100
obviously they’re family-owned and have been since 1937,
485
00:24:02.360 –> 00:24:04.840
but made the choice that they wanted to bring in
486
00:24:04.840 –> 00:24:07.360
an external CEO for the first time ever
487
00:24:07.360 –> 00:24:10.260
and they wanted someone with consumer products background.
488
00:24:11.080 –> 00:24:12.700
So Craig and I knew each other from Clorox.
489
00:24:12.720 –> 00:24:14.460
I know his wife incredibly well.
490
00:24:15.600 –> 00:24:18.160
So he brought me in just to do a strategy project.
491
00:24:19.720 –> 00:24:23.520
Yeah, and the first time I had never seen the rice fields,
492
00:24:23.720 –> 00:24:25.980
never seen that part of California,
493
00:24:26.160 –> 00:24:27.620
Richvale, Chico, et cetera.
494
00:24:28.080 –> 00:24:29.400
So when I drove up
495
00:24:29.400 –> 00:24:31.360
to kind of start leading the strategy process
496
00:24:31.360 –> 00:24:36.600
and I just saw the rice and the birds and the wildlife,
497
00:24:36.600 –> 00:24:40.760
just the beauty, it was just a time in my life
498
00:24:40.760 –> 00:24:44.760
when I just said, I wanna do something that I can see,
499
00:24:45.120 –> 00:24:47.320
feel and that I just believe is important.
500
00:24:48.340 –> 00:24:50.680
So then I joined a chief growth officer
501
00:24:50.680 –> 00:24:52.340
and about a month ago, they made me CEO.
502
00:24:53.220 –> 00:24:55.040
Yeah, and I wanted to talk a little bit about that.
503
00:24:55.140 –> 00:24:56.960
Craig was actually on the podcast
504
00:24:56.960 –> 00:24:58.500
toward the end of last year
505
00:24:58.500 –> 00:24:59.660
and he talked a little bit about
506
00:25:00.160 –> 00:25:02.600
what drew him to the business
507
00:25:03.120 –> 00:25:04.820
and I know obviously you’re succeeding.
508
00:25:04.820 –> 00:25:07.380
Craig, now, how did that come about,
509
00:25:07.440 –> 00:25:09.240
that you became that CEO?
510
00:25:09.240 –> 00:25:12.040
Yeah, well, a lot of luck, I would say.
511
00:25:12.540 –> 00:25:14.140
But first and foremost,
512
00:25:14.700 –> 00:25:17.560
Craig obviously was my partner in crime
513
00:25:17.560 –> 00:25:18.900
from a strategy standpoint
514
00:25:18.900 –> 00:25:22.040
and we’re really proud that we led
515
00:25:22.040 –> 00:25:23.500
the growth of the portfolio
516
00:25:23.500 –> 00:25:26.020
and the elevation to regenerative organic, et cetera.
517
00:25:26.440 –> 00:25:28.480
He had been in position for four years.
518
00:25:28.800 –> 00:25:31.600
I’m not sure when he first took the position,
519
00:25:31.600 –> 00:25:34.520
they had just bought a place in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
520
00:25:34.520 –> 00:25:37.960
stunning and I don’t know that they had either,
521
00:25:38.440 –> 00:25:39.880
he or his wife had realized
522
00:25:39.880 –> 00:25:43.100
that that was gonna become pretty much home base.
523
00:25:43.320 –> 00:25:46.040
I mean, she’s a designer and did just a beautiful job
524
00:25:46.040 –> 00:25:47.800
and so I don’t know if you’ve ever tried
525
00:25:47.800 –> 00:25:50.080
to get from Sacramento to Santa Fe,
526
00:25:50.280 –> 00:25:51.720
but it’s about nine hours.
527
00:25:52.220 –> 00:25:55.400
So he obviously, he had a place in St. Helena as well,
528
00:25:56.040 –> 00:25:57.960
long, long story long,
529
00:25:58.240 –> 00:26:00.080
is that he really wanted to,
530
00:26:00.420 –> 00:26:01.480
he was at a time of his life
531
00:26:01.480 –> 00:26:03.000
where he wanted to spend more time with his wife.
532
00:26:03.000 –> 00:26:07.000
So he took a position at a PE based company
533
00:26:07.000 –> 00:26:08.260
that allows him to be remote.
534
00:26:08.540 –> 00:26:10.460
And so I called his wife, I’m like,
535
00:26:10.560 –> 00:26:14.620
are you sure you want this man, like 24 hours a day?
536
00:26:15.560 –> 00:26:18.560
He said, I’m not sure, but the decision was made.
537
00:26:19.040 –> 00:26:21.220
So yeah, so then, so he announced he was leaving,
538
00:26:21.280 –> 00:26:24.320
I think too much of the shock of all of us.
539
00:26:25.100 –> 00:26:27.220
And then I was honored.
540
00:26:27.320 –> 00:26:28.640
I mean, in some ways it was kind of
541
00:26:28.640 –> 00:26:31.240
a natural progression, but in some ways not.
542
00:26:31.240 –> 00:26:34.940
So I was just honored to have an opportunity to take over.
543
00:26:36.120 –> 00:26:38.780
Well, it’s a really textbook example
544
00:26:38.780 –> 00:26:41.860
of why succession planning and having someone
545
00:26:41.860 –> 00:26:45.120
who’s ready to step in at a moment’s notice
546
00:26:45.120 –> 00:26:45.740
is so important.
547
00:26:45.760 –> 00:26:47.880
And that’s what we talk about obviously so much
548
00:26:47.880 –> 00:26:50.240
on this podcast and in our magazine.
549
00:26:50.520 –> 00:26:52.800
So it’s a great story from that perspective.
550
00:26:53.820 –> 00:26:55.660
And I wanted to, you talked a little bit
551
00:26:55.660 –> 00:26:56.960
about your past experience.
552
00:26:57.500 –> 00:27:00.980
How has your experience both outside the company
553
00:27:00.980 –> 00:27:03.540
before joining and then what you did inside Lumberg
554
00:27:03.540 –> 00:27:06.060
before becoming CEO, how do you think that’s going
555
00:27:06.060 –> 00:27:07.180
to inform your new role?
556
00:27:07.940 –> 00:27:10.760
Yeah, so that’s a great question.
557
00:27:11.140 –> 00:27:14.320
So, first of all, I did brand building
558
00:27:14.320 –> 00:27:16.680
in a very large CPG with what I thought
559
00:27:16.680 –> 00:27:18.760
at the time was such constrained resources,
560
00:27:18.800 –> 00:27:21.200
but oh my Lord, the resources we had.
561
00:27:21.680 –> 00:27:24.900
But I learned the foundational principles
562
00:27:24.900 –> 00:27:26.440
and how to approach it.
563
00:27:26.700 –> 00:27:29.200
Then when I was at Angie’s, it was PE backed.
564
00:27:29.200 –> 00:27:34.100
So I learned, first of all, navigating founders,
565
00:27:34.320 –> 00:27:35.700
not navigating, embracing.
566
00:27:35.960 –> 00:27:39.340
And how do you leverage them while navigating?
567
00:27:39.480 –> 00:27:42.260
Now that’s the word, a PE board, right?
568
00:27:42.460 –> 00:27:42.980
Yeah.
569
00:27:42.980 –> 00:27:46.360
I’d say, and I learned the importance of,
570
00:27:47.660 –> 00:27:48.860
so Clorox, I’d like to say,
571
00:27:48.960 –> 00:27:50.600
I really learned the importance of a P&L,
572
00:27:50.620 –> 00:27:53.360
profit and loss and gross margin, et cetera.
573
00:27:53.780 –> 00:27:55.180
Then what I kind of skipped over
574
00:27:55.180 –> 00:27:57.200
is I actually was CEO of a startup
575
00:27:57.840 –> 00:28:02.220
about 2020 through 2022, right before I joined Lundberg
576
00:28:02.220 –> 00:28:03.160
for about two and a half years.
577
00:28:03.580 –> 00:28:05.960
It was a product called Sensitive Home
578
00:28:05.960 –> 00:28:06.940
and it was cleaning.
579
00:28:07.080 –> 00:28:08.420
I never thought I’d go back to cleaning,
580
00:28:08.740 –> 00:28:10.200
but for cleaning products,
581
00:28:10.360 –> 00:28:12.200
it actually were safe for people to use,
582
00:28:12.400 –> 00:28:13.720
not only for us people.
583
00:28:14.440 –> 00:28:17.920
That, I would say, prepared me the absolute most
584
00:28:17.920 –> 00:28:19.580
because I learned the importance of cashflow.
585
00:28:20.120 –> 00:28:24.600
I had to do cashflow on a daily or weekly basis,
586
00:28:25.100 –> 00:28:25.960
balance sheet.
587
00:28:26.860 –> 00:28:29.140
Don’t get yourself caught with too much inventory.
588
00:28:29.160 –> 00:28:30.760
You need to make sure you have cash on hand,
589
00:28:31.000 –> 00:28:32.420
a cap table, right?
590
00:28:32.740 –> 00:28:35.000
The importance of various investors.
591
00:28:35.360 –> 00:28:37.780
And then I learned pitching the business, et cetera.
592
00:28:37.860 –> 00:28:42.140
But I would say that experience in particular,
593
00:28:42.380 –> 00:28:45.680
I think, really prepared me for this job.
594
00:28:45.940 –> 00:28:46.820
I mean, some people would say,
595
00:28:46.940 –> 00:28:48.120
I only had a team of five people.
596
00:28:48.160 –> 00:28:49.720
So they’re kind of like, how hard was that?
597
00:28:50.620 –> 00:28:52.040
Oh, very hard, right?
598
00:28:52.040 –> 00:28:53.660
When you have a team of five people, right?
599
00:28:53.760 –> 00:28:55.320
And you have investors
600
00:28:55.320 –> 00:28:58.580
and we had distribution at Wegmans, et cetera,
601
00:28:58.580 –> 00:28:59.980
and working with a co-man.
602
00:29:00.900 –> 00:29:03.240
So basically, I had my fingers in everything
603
00:29:03.240 –> 00:29:06.180
and I was deep, deep, deep.
604
00:29:06.420 –> 00:29:09.700
So I think that really prepared me,
605
00:29:09.740 –> 00:29:11.040
obviously, as a CEO position,
606
00:29:11.560 –> 00:29:13.920
but prepared me for a CEO position
607
00:29:13.920 –> 00:29:15.040
of this size of company.
608
00:29:15.360 –> 00:29:16.480
And then, of course, the benefit
609
00:29:16.480 –> 00:29:17.980
to your point of succession
610
00:29:17.980 –> 00:29:20.860
and having led the growth part of the business,
611
00:29:21.920 –> 00:29:23.440
I just had such an understanding.
612
00:29:23.440 –> 00:29:26.360
I know where some of the bodies are buried.
613
00:29:26.520 –> 00:29:28.420
I actually buried some myself, right?
614
00:29:29.000 –> 00:29:33.880
So you just have huge learning curve for me still
615
00:29:33.880 –> 00:29:36.100
on the farming side and on the ops side.
616
00:29:36.400 –> 00:29:39.560
I wasn’t as engaged, although I led innovation.
617
00:29:39.560 –> 00:29:40.860
And if you’re gonna lead innovation,
618
00:29:40.880 –> 00:29:43.500
you have to really understand how your operations work.
619
00:29:44.600 –> 00:29:47.260
But getting really down and dirty with the cashflow,
620
00:29:47.300 –> 00:29:48.440
with the balance sheet,
621
00:29:49.680 –> 00:29:51.900
with the profitability of the company
622
00:29:51.900 –> 00:29:56.240
has been the biggest difference and step change,
623
00:29:56.260 –> 00:29:58.840
but I do feel really prepared for it.
624
00:30:08.400 –> 00:30:09.560
You’re not just a CEO.
625
00:30:10.040 –> 00:30:11.560
You’re a family business CEO.
626
00:30:12.220 –> 00:30:13.360
You don’t just serve on a board.
627
00:30:13.700 –> 00:30:15.380
You’re a board member of a family business.
628
00:30:16.060 –> 00:30:17.120
You don’t just lead a group.
629
00:30:17.360 –> 00:30:18.900
You lead a family council.
630
00:30:19.460 –> 00:30:21.400
That’s why Family Business Compass exists,
631
00:30:21.800 –> 00:30:24.520
a national membership community designed exclusively
632
00:30:24.520 –> 00:30:25.980
for family business leaders
633
00:30:25.980 –> 00:30:28.580
from the team behind Family Business Magazine.
634
00:30:29.260 –> 00:30:32.060
Built on 35 plus years of experience,
635
00:30:32.640 –> 00:30:34.440
Family Business Compass offers peer groups,
636
00:30:34.860 –> 00:30:36.720
tools and templates, online education,
637
00:30:37.160 –> 00:30:38.720
research, events, and more.
638
00:30:39.520 –> 00:30:41.960
We are launching more peer groups now with limited spots
639
00:30:41.960 –> 00:30:43.400
to ensure valuable interaction
640
00:30:43.400 –> 00:30:45.980
and demand has exceeded expectations.
641
00:30:47.160 –> 00:30:49.820
Apply now at familybusinessmagazine.com
642
00:30:49.820 –> 00:30:52.420
slash family-business-compass
643
00:30:53.080 –> 00:30:56.040
to strengthen your governance, leadership, and legacy.
644
00:30:58.540 –> 00:30:59.600
That’s it for this episode
645
00:30:59.600 –> 00:31:01.700
of the Family Business Business Family Podcast.
646
00:31:02.900 –> 00:31:05.620
If you have ideas for future topics or future guests,
647
00:31:06.380 –> 00:31:10.940
reach out to me at zneedlesatfamilybusinessmagazine.com.
648
00:31:11.200 –> 00:31:11.820
Talk to you soon.