About Kelly J. Kennedy

Kelly J. Kennedy
CFO
The Honest Company

Kelly J. Kennedy has spent over two decades building strong financial stewardship for America’s most beloved brands. She has led innovative change for both consumer brands and traditional brick and mortar retailers in private-equity backed start-up ventures and large public and private companies. 

Kelly joined Honest Company (NASDAQ:HNST) as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in January 2021 and led their Initial Public Offering (IPO) in May 2021. Prior to Honest, Kelly was CFO of Bartell Drugs – the country’s oldest and largest family-owned pharmacy chain. She oversaw the sale process to Rite Aid which closed in December 2020.

Since December 2019, Kelly has served on the Board of Directors and as chair of the Audit Committee for Vital Farms (NASDAQ:VITL), a certified B Corp bringing ethically produced food to America’s table, and FirstFruits Farms, one of Washington state’s largest apple orchards. She also currently serves as the Audit Committee chair and independent Board member of RAD Power Bikes, a private Seattle-based ebike company. She served as an independent Director for Sur La Table from 2018 to 2020 after serving as their CFO. During her tenure at Sur La Table, she drove transformational change in the company’s cost structure which allowed it to pivot its real estate strategy, pursue a digital-first IT approach and invest in its experiential culinary program.

In 2012, Kelly took Annie’s public. As CFO, she led the company’s IPO and readiness efforts including building a world-class finance team, drafting the S-1 prospectus and launching investor relations. The initial and follow-on offerings generated over $350 million in sale proceeds for the owner. As the company’s first public company CFO, Kelly partnered with the founder/CEO to build trust with the analysts and investors and communicate the unique Annie’s story to the market.

Previously, as CFO of early-stage ventures such as Revolution Foods, Elephant Pharmacy and Serena & Lily, Kelly worked side by side with her founder/CEO to build investor strategies and secure new capital to support growth. Earlier in her career, she rose through the financial ranks of great public companies such as Williams-Sonoma and Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream.

Kelly has a passion for brands that give back. She has helped both CPGs and traditional retailers create fiscally-responsible plans to invest back into the communities they serve, leveraging their unique value proposition to their consumers.

Kelly holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Middlebury College.