Lee Tsukroff serves as both CFO and COO of Thorne, bringing together financial strategy and operational leadership.ThorneLee Tsukroff is the CFO and COO of Thorne, the leader in science-backed health and wellness solutions built to connect the science of performance with the science of people. As the top recommended clinical brand by health-care practitioners, Thorne offers a comprehensive range of nutritional supplements and innovative technology tools including Taia™ – Thorne’s AI-powered wellness advisor – empowering individuals to take control of their health and wellness journey with confidence. Founded in 1984, Thorne develops products with high-quality ingredients, guided by clinical research and an in-house team of doctors, researchers, and scientists to ensure every formula meets rigorous standards for purity, potency, and efficacy. Thorne maintains a vertically integrated model, setting the industry standard for supplement manufacturing at its own facility in South Carolina.Lee and I chatted about his experience leading financial operations at well-known companies such as Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s, how AI is transforming the supplement space, the future of professional wellness, and more.— One might say that Lee Tsukroff was destined to be CFO from a young age. Although he received his bachelor’s in finance from the University of Maryland’s Robert F. Smith School of Business, the signs were there even before that. Being from the Bronx and growing up in Patterson, N.J., he learned the value of money and the importance of being resourceful. Tsukroff’s father, who was a credit manager at a local furniture store and former Army mechanic, helped Tsukroff restore a 1969 Camaro he saved to purchase with his wages from Red Lobster. Father and son spent quality time buying parts and walking junkyards to save money.As a busboy at Red Lobster, he learned one of his first major life lessons: Sometimes one agrees to a request from the boss and learns how to do a good job along the way.“Because I wanted to put as much money in my pocket as possible, one of my managers asked me if I wanted to paint the outside of the Red Lobster,” Tsukroff explained. “What business do I have painting the outside of Red Lobster? He came with cans of paint, a ladder and brushes. I clearly oversold what I thought I could do. It took me many days to do that.”That early lesson in confidence has served him well. Over the course of his career, Tsukroff has worked across banking and consumer brands, with roles at Bear Stearns, Nabisco, Unilever, Newell Rubbermaid, and Melissa & Doug, among others.MORE FOR YOUToday, Tsukroff serves as CFO and COO of Thorne, a company that helps individuals lead longer, healthier lives through personalized, science-backed health and wellness products. For more than 40 years, Thorne has operated with the trust of healthcare practitioners at the forefront, while strategically expanding its direct-to-consumer business over the past decade.Consumer goods is where Tsukroff has spent the bulk of his career. After a short stint at Bear Stearns, he joined Nabisco to work on cash-flow forecasting before moving to Unilever, where he spent 20 years.At Unilever, Tsukroff met one of his most important mentors, Mike Polk, who was CEO of the Americas business, covering both North America and Latin America.“Mike was not a finance guy, but he recognized the importance of finance,” Tsukroff explained. “He taught me to be a financial professional second and a business professional first. I took a lot from that experience: become the strongest enterprise leader you can be before leaning too heavily on your technical or functional expertise.”Unilever also became the place where Tsukroff earned his first CFO title. For anyone pursuing a CFO role, he shared a tell-tale sign that the opportunity is right: there should be a nervous pit in your stomach. Uncertainty is normal, he said, and the CFO role should feel bigger than anything the person has done before. He views it as the culmination of many career experiences, requiring a leader to trust what they have learned and step fully into the role.Tsukroff went on to serve as CFO of the North American ice cream business, working on brands such as Ben & Jerry’s, Klondike, and Breyers. The role gave him the opportunity to work with talented teams and, at home, made him a popular guest for Bring Your Father to School Day when his two sons were young.He has had other opportunities to be affiliated with products that delight children. Tsukroff also served as CFO of the Melissa & Doug toy company, a $300 million privately held business at the time. He had the chance to work with the founders, who gave him full operational and financial ownership. When the business was sold to a second investor, that investor asked Tsukroff to stay on. It eventually led him to the role at Thorne.“During that tenure, what I learned was that you can have a purpose-driven business and still make money, drive growth, and move forward,” he said. “I knew that from my prior days, but it stayed with me as something I wanted to bring to my next opportunity. In 2023, I knew I wasn’t going to stay with the large corporation that bought Melissa & Doug, which gave me the opportunity to learn about Thorne.”He knew his next opportunity should center on helping people live better, whether that meant serving children again or reaching other populations. Consumer wellness intrigued him, particularly the chance to help people stay healthy longer and meet consumers where they are, from people in their twenties to those in their forties and beyond.One unique quality of Tsukroff’s role at Thorne is that he holds both the CFO and COO titles. Originally hired as CFO, he later added COO responsibilities after organizational changes created an opportunity to apply his experience in supply chain and other functions. The combined role gives him a broader perspective in conversations with the CEO and other leaders.“I’m working on decision-making about how to make things move forward more quickly,” he stated. “When I’m speaking with my CEO or other members of my leadership team, what I bring to the table is a holistic perspective. It’s not just about saying, ‘We need this as an ROI.’ It is about investing in capability, capacity, and quality. If you’re looking at a CFO, those priorities shouldn’t be opposed to one another. What I’m able to do is bring them together every time I’m interacting with anyone.”That view, strengthened by experience, has helped Tsukroff build talent across financial planning, strategic finance, and controllership. He emphasizes moving from data to action quickly, encouraging his team to find the story behind the numbers and determine what it says about the best next steps.Another critical issue is ensuring a blend between finance and strategy.“Strategy needs to be transformed into action,” Tsukroff stated. “I do think there needs to be the right metrics and deliverables for that strategy. Taking a strategy and breaking it down into tactics, and then attaching metrics to those tactics, is incredibly important. The role of the CFO is to help make that happen. It’s great to say we want to double the size of the business. That’s aspirational, but how do we do it? How do we break it down into pieces? The way I operate is always to think about the destination and then plan backward. If you think that way, you often realize you need to do something earlier than you expected, and you can anticipate those needs sooner.”One force Tsukroff does not need to anticipate is already here: generative AI. He said AI is allowing Thorne to meet customers where they are through personalization. It has helped the company use 40 years of science, practitioner heritage, and clinical information to create an ecosystem that serves and interfaces with consumers.AI at Thorne is not about replacing the scientific and clinical bases and cornerstones of the brand.“AI […] lets us answer a consumer’s question much more quickly and matter-of-factly, with all the information,” he explained. “We see [AI] as a breakthrough within our category and in the company.” Beyond his roles at Thorne, family is important to Tsukroff. As a result of watching family members experience chronic illness and disease, he and his wife engage in philanthropic work. “It’s about how we can help these organizations think differently and better promote the work they want to advance,” he said. “It does feel good. Doing good feels good. There’s a full-circle aspect to it. I believe you can influence your own outcomes. It is something that’s important to her and me.”As a CFO working in wellness and a leader committed to causes that improve people’s lives, Lee Tsukroff offers a clear example of what it means to walk the talk.