Clio Brings in Seasoned Exec to Take on CEO Role

Clio Snacks is shaking up its executive team, bringing aboard CPG veteran John McGuckin as its new CEO.

McGuckin comes to the yogurt-based bar brand after spending two years as chief customer officer of Lakeview Farms, which acquired Tribe Foods (where he was formerly CEO) in 2018. His prior career experience includes stints as the CEO at Indian food brand Maya Kaimal, chief sales officer at The Chia Company and EVP of North American sales at Sabra. Over his eight years at Sabra, McGuckin helped grow the brand’s sales from $10 million per year to over $500 million.

“I think it’s about the level of enthusiasm around the brand. As I look back at my career, I can say easily that you know the most exciting time of my career was my time with Sabra,” McGuckin said. “Getting behind a brand again is a big motivator for me.”

Meanwhile, Clio founder and former CEO Sergey Konchakovskiy will transition to chairman of the board. Moving forward he will be less involved in the company’s day-to-day operations, McGuckin said, but will rather focus on “long term growth initiatives” such as manufacturing expansion, product innovation and investor relations. Clio’s investors include ACG and AF Ventures (formerly AccelFoods)

While McGuckin said he is “very pleased with the level of resources and the level of experience” at Clio, the company will also look to hire new talent to fill any gaps and support its growth. One priority will be hiring a new COO, following the departure of Heather MacNeil Cox earlier this spring. McGuckin said Clio has already extended an offer to an experienced operations executive and will announce the new hire in the upcoming weeks. Meanwhile, VP of marketing Rachel Moore was promoted to CMO last month.

One of the company’s short-term goals, McGuckin added, will be refining operations to better serve its holistic needs.

“I think that there’s a tremendous opportunity to bring critical KPIs across the entire organization,” he said. “We’re gonna have very dynamic, fast, powerful growth and we have a lot of young people here. So I think establishing the internal engine so that it can keep pace with where you know the car wants to go is very critical.”

There’s big goals for that growth as well, with McGuckin stating he hopes to grow Clio’s velocity by 30% and ACV by 20% in the next year. Innovation will be largely confined to new flavors of existing products, with much of the company’s efforts going towards expanding distribution and household penetration.

Though brands across categories have struggled with supply chain and operations issues over the last year, resulting in lower sales growth for some, Clio self-manufacturers its bars and is well positioned to keep pace with the increased demand. Though the company had to issue a product recall earlier this year due to manufacturing issues, McGuckin said that he “feels 100% certain that the corrective actions that were taken” and noted sales were very quickly back online and even growing.

McGuckin’s belief in Clio’s potential for growth is, in part, because it is an appealing addition to the yogurt or snacking categories for category managers. Currently, Clio is one of the only dairy-based refrigerated bars and the company has no plans to co-pack or offer private label versions. For consumers, the bars also hit multiple day parts, offering easy options from breakfast through to dessert.

“What’s wonderful about Clio is the incrementality to the category — when you go to the trade, you can show them ‘we’re not replacing something else: we’re bringing you something that people are going to come to the case and buy us incrementally,” he said. “When you have that kind of leverage. It does, it creates an exceptional story.”