Janis Hoyt is Chief Human Resources Officer of Primal Pet Group, and a Mogul Top 100 People Leader of 2026. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, studied sociology at UC Berkeley, and says that is where her interest in people started, because sociology is the study of how people tick.

She began in retail, on Macy's executive training programme, learning gross margin and operations and managing a staff of thirty while she was still young. A rotational assignment took her into human resources and she never left. Then healthcare at Aetna, where she became an HR business partner, and then Clorox, the company she says shaped who she is both personally and professionally.

At Clorox her boss, Bill Dixey, offered her something she had not asked for and was not sure she could do: head of HR for Latin America and a small business in London. She told him she did not even speak Spanish. He told her he believed she could do the job. She calls that her first believer, and it is the thread running through the whole conversation. It happened again at Blue Shield of California with Mary O'Hara, and again when Nick Vlahos called her to become Chief People Officer of The Honest Company, five years into its life and on its way to a 2021 IPO.

Today she is at Primal Pet Group, recruited by another former Clorox colleague, CEO Jon Balousek. Her contribution to that leadership team, she says, is being the one willing to ask the uncomfortable question in the room: do we have the capacity, with the talent we have, to do all of the initiatives we have?

In this episode, Janis tells Tiffany Pham what a first believer actually does, the difference between a mentor who cheers for you and a mentor who champions you when you are not in the room, why she spent years afraid of feedback and what changed, how she thinks about infusing AI at the speed a particular culture can absorb, and the one question she thinks every leadership team is avoiding.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome

01:15 Before the chief officer seat

01:40 UC Berkeley, sociology, and an interest in how people tick

02:58 Macy's executive training programme, and learning the business

04:16 Be open to change, and the lifelong learner

04:38 Into healthcare: Aetna and becoming an HR business partner

06:25 Clorox, and moving from healthcare into CPG

07:49 The role that was outside her comfort zone

08:09 Bill Dixey, her first believer

09:08 "I believe you can do this job"

10:10 What an international role actually teaches you

12:59 Blue Shield of California, and Mary O'Hara

14:07 The cheerleader versus the champion in the room

14:39 The Honest Company, and the call from Nick Vlahos

17:46 Trust, clear expectations, and the courage to ask for feedback

18:36 Why she feared feedback, and what changed

20:36 Where she was when the call came

21:55 Taking Honest public, and what came after

23:44 Primal Pet Group, and Jon Balousek

25:36 "Do we have the capacity?"

26:16 The critical few, not the critical many

26:47 What she is proudest of: reading the culture before infusing the tools

28:01 Capability planning, not human capital planning

30:52 Advice for the next chief officer

32:55 If you want feedback, ask your kids

Quotes:

"They were my champion in the room when I wasn't even there."

"I said, Bill, I don't even know how to speak Spanish. And he said, I believe you can do this job."

"That's the first time I really stepped back and I thought, wow, someone is believing in me."

"Do we have the capacity as an organization, with the talent we have, to do all of the initiatives we have?"

"It's really about finding the critical few things as opposed to the critical many things that are often on our plates."

"It's no longer a human capital planning process. It's really a capability planning process."

"If you want to get feedback, ask your kids. They have no problem telling you what's true."

"I have my own personal board of directors."

Andy Doyle is Chief People and Agent Officer of Kantar. He was born in London, studied economics at Loughborough University of Technology, spent a couple of years working in Texas, and has built a career on international roles run out of UK headquarters.

His first chief officer job was, in his words, a baby one. It was 2001, the dot-com boom, an online retailer with an HR team about ten strong, and he was recruited in from a much larger corporate role. The business failed. He still counts it as one of the most valuable jobs he has had, because it taught him what it is to sit with a board and run a company that is running out of cash. Then came a number-two divisional role, and then ITV, where he joined as deputy to a leader who had been there twenty-five years. She went part-time, then left. He was given six months as interim, and he decided on day one to stop behaving like an interim.

He got the job. He also got the financial crisis, and had to take forty percent out of his own function. Today, at Kantar, he leads roughly twelve thousand people and about seventeen thousand agents, with over ninety percent of colleagues using AI every day.

In this episode, Andy tells Tiffany Pham why he never tried to be his predecessor, what actually changes when you go from divisional leader to the top job, why the promotion call is always an anticlimax, what he is proudest of, and the one habit he thinks separates the people who get the seat from the people who wait for it.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome

00:49 London, Loughborough, and a couple of years in Texas

02:26 The first chief officer role, in the dot-com boom

03:14 Why small companies recruit the top HR job from outside

04:48 The company failed, and it was worth it

05:13 ITV, and joining as the number two

06:28 Six months as interim

07:16 “I couldn't be her. I had to be me.”

08:04 Act as though you already have the job

09:36 What actually changes when you take the top seat

10:21 The promotion call is an anticlimax

11:32 Taking the job in a financial crisis, and cutting the function by 40%

12:35 Chief People and Agent Officer: people plus agents

12:59 What he is proudest of: giving people a chance

14:22 The future of work, and why control is the real question

16:42 Building 17,000 agents, and a culture that lets people fail

18:58 Advice for the next chief officer: think like a member of the board

Quotes:

“The advice I'd give people is think like a member of the board.”

“I said, I can't pretend I don't want this job and I have to act like I'm going to have this job and I'm going to succeed, and not wait until the end and see what happens.”

“One thing that was very obvious to me was I couldn't be her. I had to be me.”

“I now have people in my team that my children are older than.”

“People always surprise me how capable they really are.”

Mark Miller found his career before he found his degree. Growing up in Toronto as the youngest of three in a working-class family, he took a high school course that let students work at a company for credit if they could land the job themselves. He cold-called The Second City, hoping to write comedy. They turned him down, told him they liked him anyway, and phoned a small Canadian national ad agency on his behalf. He interned there as a copywriter, was offered a full-time job before he had finished school, and went to university instead because his parents would not hear otherwise. The same agency hired him the day he graduated.

From there he moved to a large global agency in Toronto, then was recruited to Los Angeles as a senior strategist at Rubin Postaer and Associates, where the strategy team sat overlooking the Third Street Promenade. He joined Team One as a director, became executive director, and was passed over for the chief strategy officer seat twice before a new business pitch he led and won finally made the case. The first people he called were his mom and dad.

In this episode, Mark tells Tiffany Pham what it is like to be handed budget approvals you do not yet know the rules for, why he wanted longevity rather than the next title, the body of work he is proudest of (the Global Affluent Collective, the Moonshot speaker series and the Legacy Lab), and the advice he would give anyone one seat below: be a little more like Waze.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome

01:21 Toronto, and the high school course that paid in credit

02:34 Cold-calling The Second City

04:29 “You should do that”: the referral that started an advertising career

05:18 A full-time offer at seventeen, and why his parents said university first

06:49 From a small Canadian national to a large global agency

08:38 Recruited to Los Angeles: Rubin Postaer and Associates

10:53 Joining Team One, where business thinking drives creative thinking

12:04 Passed over for CSO, twice

13:52 The pitch he led, and won

15:08 Who made the call

16:17 The first people he told: his mom and dad

18:06 The first week, and a summons from the CFO

19:40 What he is proudest of: work that outlasts him

21:14 Alumni now at IDEO, Amazon and Meta

22:29 Advice for the next chief officer: be a little more like Waze

Quotes:

“I guess I would say be a little bit more like Waze. Strategic and flexible.”

“You need to know where you're starting and you need to know where you're going. With those two pieces of information, you can constantly route and reroute to get you there in the most efficient way.”

“I wasn't interested in just the next job, and I wasn't interested in just the next title. I knew that I wanted to do something that was meaningful in the industry.”

“Being a CSO is more than just being exceptional at your craft. There's the ability to inspire and move people and lead an organization forward.”