2018
Foraker helps O'Farm expand from 400 stores to 8,500.
2017
Foraker joins O'Farm; in a year, revenue tops $8 million.
2012
As CEO of Annie's, he leads its IPO, raising $90 million.
1994
In grad school, Foraker joins the organic food movement.
“I LOVE SLACK. I GET MY PLATINUM MILES ON SLACK!”
These words come from the mouth of Jennifer Garner. She's driving her black BMW south from Los Angeles to a location as seemingly unlikely as her adoration of workplace management tools: a high-pressure food processing plant. It's an hour's drive south of L.A. proper, in Buena Park. She's excited to show off the plant, which makes cold-pressed fruit-and-vegetable blends for her organic baby food company, Once Upon a Farm. When another driver pauses for her at a fourway stop, she waves a cheerful thank-you, despite being behind a tinted window. She explains that before she joined Once Upon a Farm in 2017, she'd never used Slack. Now she's a pro: “Don't try to just open a channel without me: I will find you!”
When Garner joined Once Upon a Farm as co-founder and chief brand officer, the role was both familiar and foreign. She's in part chief public enthusiast: natural stuff for a Golden Globe-winning actor and philanthropist who's been the public face of brands such as Neutrogena and Capital One. The second part was completely outside of her bailiwick: corporate executive. But the daily job of guiding a company's growth and mission was precisely what she wanted—and not so that she could be on Slack or Asana or Zoom all day (though she is, some days—and clearly sort of enjoys it). Rather, it came from having watched businesses move the needle while nonprofits struggled and governments were sluggish to improve early-childhood nutrition in America. She wanted to steer nationwide change, from the driver's seat.
Riding shotgun is a man who wholly agrees with her—like her, he's motivated by a desire to democratize kids’ access to quality nutrition—but who possesses an almost diametrically opposed set of skills. He's the Berkeley to her Beverly Hills. The yin to her yang. The
