Counting My Blessings
As I move on from MegaFood, I look back with pride and affection for a great team
When I was six years old, my dad gave me some fatherly advice to work hard and follow my heart. He encouraged me to understand that I “could be anything in the world” I wanted to be. The advice meant all the more to me because we thought at the time that he was dying of cancer. After years of fighting it, he pulled through it, but his words continued to have a huge influence in my life. Years later, in the midst of an intensive period of self-reflection during which his words again buoyed me, I came to understand that my purpose in life was to become a leader of organizations. I wasn’t sure what kind of organization, only that through my leadership I might change the world.
I’ve been thinking a lot about those occasions a lot this year because 2018 will go down as another profoundly impactful one in my life. It marks a year in which I took considerable satisfaction in having helped to build a change-the-world organization in MegaFood. It also marks the end of my tenure as the CEO of that wonderful company.
When I took the helm at MegaFood in 2011, it had been entrepreneurially run by owner/president Carl E. Jackson for more than two decades. What the company lacked in systems and strategy it more than made up for in a passionate team who loved their unique products and were loved, in turn, by their devoted base of loyal customers. I went to MegaFood because it seemed the perfect place for an idealistic, purpose-driven person to make his mark.
And I was right.
Over the next seven and a half years, we raised the company from an active child to a precocious teenager, growing revenues, our team, and our line of innovative products, while, in the relative blink of an eye, widening our focus from serving independent retailers to going direct to consumer. We launched several passion projects that inspired our industry, including a movement to greater transparency, a business accelerator, the adoption of conscious leadership for professional development, designation as a Certified B Corporation, and advocacy for regenerative agricultural practices.
Where MegaFood goes from here will fall to its new leadership as its parent company Pharmavite stewards this unique brand to the next level. I wish all my friends and colleagues there continued success and deep professional fulfillment. I’ve learned so much from them and feel blessed to have been able to work in an industry and a company devoted to improving people’s lives and protecting the planet.
I feel blessed not only to have helped build some great programs, but to have shared the journey with people I trust and respect because they made me dig deep and bring out the best in myself. I couldn’t ask for more than that.
Where I go from here is an open book. I’m excited to turn the page.
Sincerely,
Robert U. Craven
