Blair Kellison

Blair has spent the last 25 years as a CEO in the natural products industry, working directly with founders throughout. He partners with founders to create a meaningful role for them as a CEO takes over leadership and an executive team takes on day-to-day management. In each of his CEO roles, Blair and the founder have built or scaled a company culture centered on kindness, purpose and passion, and brought in the best practices a growing organization needs to scale. He believes competition today is between business models and company cultures, not products, and that forward-thinking, sustainable, stakeholder-centric business models are a competitive advantage. Blair began his career as a CPA at Ernst & Young, earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, and served as a Brand Manager at Nestlé. In 1995 he took a 70% pay cut to join Fantastic Foods, a mission-driven natural food company, in business development. He calls it the best decision of his career because it let him put his skills and experience to work for his passion for healthy living.

Blair believes good leadership comes from making smart decisions, not from being the smartest person in the room. To get there, he hires people who know more than he does in their areas and listens to them, especially when they disagree. His motto is “do what you love and call it work,” and he considers helping others find their own super power to be his. Each year he speaks at colleges and mentors people one-on-one to help them bring their skills and their passion together, which he believes is where the magic happens in a career.

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