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."