Ricky Khetarpaul joined Liquid Death as CFO just last week, stepping into one of the fastest-growing and most unconventional brands in the consumer goods industry.
Known for its bold marketing and loyal fan base, the company built a $1.4 billion cult-like following by turning canned water and sparkling beverages into a lifestyle product. Though some of the brand’s buzz has reportedly waned, now, with the help of its new CFO, it plans to grow brand recognition and expand its consumer base with new energy drink offerings.
Khetarpaul, the former CFO of Health-Ade, Lavazza North America and a longtime PepsiCo leader, says the challenge here isn’t just sustaining growth but scaling it profitably. In this conversation with CFO.com, he discusses his plans for success both short and long term at Liquid Death, his “shopkeeper math” philosophy, the importance of defining a clear North Star for growth and why change management is one of a modern CFO’s most valuable skills.
Ricky Khetarpaul
CFO, Liquid Death
First CFO Position: 2013
Notable previous employers:
- Health-Ade
- Sabra Dipping Company
- Lavazza
- PepsiCo
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
ADAM ZAKI: When you were looking for a new job, what drew you to this role? Was it the growth aspect of the business, the fun marketing or maybe both?
RICKY KHETARPAUL: It is both of them, and then a few other things. It’s absolutely the demonstrated growth that the business has had. The brand is culturally so relevant today. It resonates with our consumers and has such a fan following.
I’ve been in [consumer packaged goods] for a couple of decades now, so when I see a brand that’s doing really unique marketing and building those bridges with consumers, I have a significant amount of appreciation for that. Building a loved brand is the biggest challenge in CPG, and I’ve seen even giant brands struggle with it firsthand.
Liquid Death, in just a few short years, has built one of the biggest fan bases in the beverage industry. I’ve never seen a brand loved like this before. They’ve created excitement around historically boring categories like water, soda, flavored sparkling water and iced tea. Now that we’re getting into energy drinks, I think there’s tremendous potential for this brand to continue accelerating at that pace.
As a CFO, that’s extremely appealing. They’ve built a true, healthy beverage platform with a proven track record and are an innovator across categories. It’s not very common that you see that, so I was really attracted to all of those attributes you mentioned.
Before taking the role, what was your impression of Liquid Death?
I, along with most people working in CPG, am very aware of this brand. In fact, I’ve known folks working at Liquid Death — CPG is a small world with close circles. I actually worked with the previous CFO [Karim Sadik-Khan] a couple of decades ago at PepsiCo, so I kind of knew the team.
But even outside of that, I’ve been in beverages my entire career. I live and breathe beverages every single day. When a brand is doing something right, it catches your attention, especially in this space. And Liquid Death, with the phenomenal job they’ve done from a marketing perspective and how quickly they’ve become a real force across categories, definitely caught my attention.
People working in this industry know Liquid Death for their advertising. Most marketing teams in beverage companies were wondering, ‘How is Liquid Death able to do what they do?’ As a CFO and a professional, I was intrigued by how they were building such efficient and effective campaigns. All of that created excitement for me well before I joined as an employee.
So now that you’re here, can you give me some priorities for the next 100 days? What goals can be accomplished in that timeframe?
I come into the CFO role with a very commercial mindset. One of the key stated goals here is scaling profit — continuing to grow but doing it in a profitable manner. To do this, at the onset, my priorities right now are very foundational.
“If the employees at Liquid Death, especially within my team but also across the broader organization, feel highly engaged and aligned with our purpose, that would be a big measure of success for me.”
Ricky Khetarpaul
CFO, Liquid Death
Number one is 100% learning the business. There’s a secret sauce that Liquid Death has, and I want to understand and amplify it. Our founder and CEO has a very unique perspective and approach to marketing, and that has permeated through the organization. I want to learn that and amplify it so the excitement for the brand and the strong sales track record continue.
Then I want to layer in what I’ve learned over time — that finance really can be a growth driver for the business. Too often, organizations see finance as a backward-looking function, more accounting-led or control-led.
I want to build bridges with cross-functional teams, stakeholders and shareholders so they see finance’s contributions from a strategic growth perspective, not just closing the books or completing audits. As much as finance’s job is to look backward, we must have the means to look forward. That’s the role I want finance to play here: Having a seat at the table and driving decisions based on intuition and insights, but also grounded in facts and data.
From edgy campaigns to giving away a jet, Liquid Death takes big swings in marketing. How do you balance finance’s role in managing risk while backing that level of creativity?
One of the foundational pieces of work I have to undertake right now, along with our executive team and our board, is defining our long-term view of the business. What do we want to be? Once the North Star is clear, there’s much less friction because everyone knows the goal they’re trying to reach.
The problem I’ve seen in organizations is when the North Star isn’t clearly defined and every function tries to optimize its own role — sales, operations, HR, strategy. Everyone is trying to be their best, but what does that look like collectively? What’s the end goal?
Sure, we can have really strong top-line growth, but we might be spending more or less to get there — and how do you determine what’s more or less? It’s all relative. The key to aligning efforts and focusing the organization is having that long-term strategic plan.
Once we agree on where we want to be in three or five years — and that alignment comes through collaboration with the executive team and shareholders — we can work backward and identify the key milestones. From there, alignment to tactics becomes much easier because everyone shares the same vision.
In my last couple of roles, helping unlock that common vision and leading the change management to get there has been a big part of my focus. We’ll hold workshops and trainings to track progress, assess the tools we need to reach our goals and ensure that everyone is aligned. But the most critical part is defining that vision for the next three to five years. That’s a key deliverable for us.
Collaboration is a common theme among CFOs lately. In your case, the relationship between finance and marketing seems especially important. Is there a specific metric or way you’ll define success in that relationship?
Marketing is one of the key pillars of success for any consumer-branded company. It creates a pool of consumers most likely to pick your product because of brand awareness. We’ve had very memorable campaigns that the marketing team has led and converted into success for Liquid Death.
I’m a big fan of cross-functional partnerships, especially between finance and marketing. At Liquid Death, marketing investments are viewed both strategically and through an ROI lens. Again, it goes back to that North Star — if the goal is to reach a certain top-line target at a given cost, and we align on that early, then tracking performance becomes clear throughout the year.
We ask: Are we spending to get the right returns? And sometimes, especially at a company like Liquid Death, marketing can be so effective that you ask, ‘Should we invest even more?’ There’s a strong correlation between marketing investments and performance in the marketplace.
We track that through metrics like household penetration and velocity on shelf, but it comes down to what happens when the consumer is standing there in the aisle. Are they picking up our product versus someone else’s? Consumers are voting with their dollars, and we can see that our effective marketing translates into top-line growth.
Is there a core lesson or approach from your past finance roles that you plan to carry over to your new role?
Yes. I’ll share a quote from one of my mentors from my PepsiCo days. I was thinking about all the complex things a business needs to do to be successful, and how finance supports that. The guidance I got was, ‘Finance, and really most functions, need to be able to do shopkeeper math.’
“I view my role as change management for the entire organization, so if people feel empowered and motivated to go the extra step to drive performance, that’s a big win.”
Ricky Khetarpaul
CFO, Liquid Death
We need to be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide — and that’s all we really need to do. We’re not solving calculus problems or running complex statistical models every day. If we can do shopkeeper math, learn the business code and apply that consistently with the right focus and discipline over time, most organizations can be very successful.
In the last several years, especially in high-growth companies, I’ve seen that growth often surpasses the infrastructure that exists. Whether it’s trade management, business intelligence reporting or ERP systems. That’s actually a good problem to have, because it means the company is growing so rapidly.
That’s the assessment I’m doing right now at Liquid Death. The company has invested in good technology suites already, so the question is how to leverage them and what else to bring in. I come with a strong background in financial planning and analysis, revenue growth management and trade optimization — areas that can unlock significant value.
Again, going back to the shopkeeper math — even basic processes like forecasting are incredibly powerful if done with focus and clarity. Having a regular cadence of closing the books, reporting results and forecasting every month helps align all business partners. Forecasting isn’t just a finance function; it’s a business function that helps align resources, highlight risks and shift focus toward opportunities. Doing that consistently every month unlocks alignment and growth for the organization.
Twelve months from now, how will you define success?
A few different ways. One thing I’ve always focused on in my roles is both consumer engagement and employee engagement. One is buying the product, and the other is making it available and successful.
I spend a lot of time making sure we’re building high-performance teams that are engaged and motivated. If the employees at Liquid Death, especially within my team but also across the broader organization, feel highly engaged and aligned with our purpose, that would be a big measure of success for me.
I view my role as change management for the entire organization, so if people feel empowered and motivated to go the extra step to drive performance, that’s a big win.
The second piece is consumer engagement. We’re about to launch into this new category of energy drinks. It’s a highly anticipated launch for us. Twelve months from now, I want to look back and say that we realized the potential of that expansion, put the right investments behind it and executed a terrific media campaign. If we can do that, I’ll feel that we did justice to this tremendous opportunity.
