Andrew Jacobson

Founder, Epiphany

Andrew Jacobson has distinguished himself as a results-driven leader and pioneer in the natural and organic industry. With a career spanning more than 23 years across multiple industry segments ranging from food and beverage to personal care, pet food, and supplements, Mr. Jacobson has an exceptional ability to inspire and lead an organization to success, identify and implement a customer and employee centric strategic vision, evaluate and execute acquisition targets, in addition to rapidly assessing and troubleshooting operations, sales, product development, strategy, and cost savings opportunities. He is a strong leader with a proven track record building sustainable and profitable brands driven by his respect and dedication for the customer, his teams, his brands, and the industry. Mr. Jacobson is dedicated to helping brands achieve consistent results and has demonstrated his ability to resuscitate even stagnant sales across multiple industries. His innovative, “outside the box” results-driven approach continues to transform brands small and large to realize their potentials in the market.

From 1984 through 1992, Mr. Jacobson supported the expansion of Tree of Life as the Director of Sales where he increased territory sales from $3million to $18million in just 24 months. As the President of Westbrae Natural Foods from 1992 through 1997, Mr. Jacobson restored the company to profitability in just six months. He increased service level from 82% to 98% through customer service reorganization, forecasting and improved manufacturing efficiencies. Innovation continued at unprecedented rates, delivering $15 million in incremental revenue and 5,000 new doors in 18 months. Mr. Jacobson created the first in house sales force in natural foods, a key factor in the sale and valuation of Westbrae. Through strong leadership and powerful teamwork, Westbrae became the #1 aseptic brand.

Mr. Jacobson joined The Hain Celestial Group in 1997, first as the President of Sales & Customer Service then as the President, Natural Products, the General Manager, Global Non-Dairy and Strategic Acquisitions, and President, Personal Care. In each position, Mr. Jacobson’s visionary leadership inspired innovation and performance among his teams resulting in consistent sales & profit increases. He improved customer coverage by restructuring the sales force, reduced costs, negotiated strategic manufacturing contracts, realigned products for consumer success and expanded product development across all brands. Mr. Jacobson also successfully lead the integration of many acquisitions and helped create new business units throughout the company. His leadership allowed his teams to exceed all sales goals, costs reductions, and profit objectives. As the President & CEO of Cyanotech from 2008 through 2010, Mr. Jacobson restored profitability in 12 months resulting in a $2.2 million increase in net income while increasing margins by 13 points and revenue by 23%. He increased company value and shareholder equity from $7 million to $25.