Sandra Beaver has served as the CFO of Evolus since 2022.
Evolus
There is a common saying people use when describing the need to take one’s time instead of rush. “It is a marathon, not a sprint.” For Sandra Beaver, that phrase could be her life’s motto. Sandra is the CFO of Evolus, a performance beauty company dedicated to providing extended choices in aesthetic treatments and procedures. Not only is she a high performer at work, carefully curating company strategy, business development, team-building and acquisitions, but she doubles as a long-distance runner, having competed in ultra-marathons as long as 100 miles.
Recently, Sandra joined me for a discussion about her upbringing, what makes the CEO/CFO dynamic work well at Evolus, hot wings, the personal growth that comes about from taking on physical challenges, and much more.
Sandra Beaver is a New Englander who ended up in the Golden State. Originally from Chelmsford, Mass., her school years were marked with ambition and direction as someone who was locked in on working in business before she even got to college. In high school, she participated in the Distributed Education Clubs of America (DECA), where she competed against others’ marketing and business plans.
She was the president of the club for a few years and then made an extraordinary choice for her life at 17: Whereas most teens get a part-time job in fast food or retail, she took on an internship in investor relations at Staples. She did so because of a compelling example at home.
“My mother was in investor relations,” she said. “I was doing investor shows at store tours, organizing them, and doing all the scripting, analyst calls, and all that stuff. It was great. At seventeen, you don’t appreciate how cool of an experience and an opportunity that is.”
After high school, she went to UMass and continued to intern each summer, even returning to Staples. After graduation, she worked for the non-profit Accion, a microlender for emerging businesses, mostly immigrants, in San Diego. It’s where she honed her gift for working with numbers.
Her next move was to an investment bank called Trust Company, working in its accounting department. She then decided to venture back east at a gaming company called International Gaming Technologies (IGT), in Providence, R.I., where she stayed for 17 years. But, that company moved her again, this time to Las Vegas, Nev.
“It was GTECH when I started,” Beaver says. “They acquired IGT in 2015, rebranded the whole company, and moved me to Las Vegas to take over as CFO of the acquisition case. It was a $14 billion acquisition and was the biggest acquisition the company had done. It doubled their size. I did that for four years before landing at Experian here in Southern California.”
She now calls Newport Beach, Calif. home. Through her work at Experian, she found the role at Evolus. At the time, Beaver was the CFO for all the vertical markets in North America for Experian and had a portfolio of over $1 billion, running four businesses.
“I got a call that this $150 million aesthetics company was interested in having me come as a CFO,” she said. “My first reaction was, ‘Why did you call me? I don’t understand.’ The recruiter basically said, ‘We know you want to stay local. Take a call with the CEO. If nothing else, you’ve made a local friend.’ So I said, sure, why not?”
Although she didn’t proactively seek the job, the opportunity intrigued her enough to move forward with the chance to speak with CEO David Moatazedi. His combination of vision and clarity about how to execute his vision made an impact, as well as the opportunity to be a part of something that was so unique–and growing quickly.
“This market is growing at 10% and the TAM is $2.3 billion,” she said. “There are only four companies that do this right now. It’s interesting, and it’s exciting. We could build something incredible here that’s different from what anybody else does in this space. We have a way of differentiating this product in a way that nobody else does. The opportunity was so clear after having that conversation.”
One other element that inspired her was the chance to work in a new industry. Beaver is no stranger to working in different industries and says that the variety of work–from investment banks to gaming companies, personal finance and now medicine and beauty–is a unique highlight of her work as a CFO.
“The companies are very different,” Beaver said. “There’s also something wonderful about being in finance; it’s a transferable skill. It’s given me a great opportunity to learn different industries and engage with different product offerings. It’s different markets across the globe. Watching companies grow and being a part of that growth is an invaluable thing to go through.”
At IGT in particular, she worked on multiple acquisitions, honing her skills when it comes to how to integrate companies. Specifically, Beaver says that integrating a company is not just about the numbers; it’s about whether the accounting systems align and have the same forecast process, whether people work together effectively, and whether you can get the team to feel like a team when it’s a new organization.
It was an opportunity that helped her develop a vision for the long game.
“At Evolus, we’re small, but we have these great aspirations of being a bigger company,” she shares. “I had all of that opportunity at IGT and then at Experian. At Experian, we did three acquisitions in three years. Being able to learn how to not just see an opportunity but realize that opportunity all the way through to execution has given me a great background to come into a company that we’re ready to build.”
Building is exactly what they are currently doing. Evolus is a performance beauty company that focuses on building a portfolio of aesthetic products. Their flagship product, Jeuveau, is a neurotoxin, and it has been the fastest-growing neurotoxin in the market for the last two years. They also announced the license of a dermal filler line, Evolysse™, that will launch in 2025.
But, as any effective leader knows, building something solid requires a strong foundation. Beaver’s work as CFO is only possible with one fundamental component: support. She is a powerful example of how a cohesive team can help someone grow beyond their comfort zone–and to want to take on challenges.
“People often ask me for the key to success as a CFO,” she says. “It’s my team. It’s not me anymore that’s going to make me successful. It’s making sure I’ve got smart people around me advising me and people that I trust.”
It’s also about being trusted in return. She is encouraged to dip her toe in various aspects of the business from everyone involved, from the company’s chief medical officer to sales representatives.
Connecting to those colleagues, from mentors to C-suite leadership, is something that is extremely important to her. In her work as CFO, she often considers how she can strengthen those around her. That strength comes from company culture, a big focus area for her when hiring.
“We’ve built something special at Evolus,” she says. “I say we’re maniacal protectors of our culture. We’re very selective about talent because it’s not about ‘do you have the aptitude and the chops for the job?’ You have to feel like you’re going to work well within our environment, and connect with our teams. We can’t afford to disrupt that because we feel it’s so high value.”
One component of Evolus’ work, especially amid the global conversations about the benefits and downfalls of working from home, is the need to create human connection in-person. They require their staff of approximately 300 employees to be in the office three days per week.
She asserts that it not only keeps people engaged, but it gives them ownership of what they do to bond with their fellow employees. With that in mind, Evolus organizes one cultural event per month, and its theme is in the hands of the employees.
“They did a Hot Ones challenge, and it was one of the most hysterical things I have ever seen,” Beaver adds. “If you have ever seen the show, where they interview you and you eat hotter and hotter hot wings while you’re trying to answer questions, they riffed off of that. They came up with everything themselves. I’ve never seen more people show up or more people get engaged. It wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t the leadership’s idea. It was the team’s idea. We support them in building the culture the way that they want to build it.”
More than enjoying laughs while eating spicy chicken wings, Beaver says that culture helps people feel comfortable and confident in who they are, share what they need, and feel valued and heard in the organization. In addition to the positive impression that her colleagues have made on her, one critical rapport she has worked to build over time is the one she has with CEO David Moatazedi.
As much as they have in common–being the same age, getting married the same year, having sons with the same first name, one factor that makes their work together so rewarding is how different they are. Beaver describes him as being a strategic visionary leader, whereas she is an operational leader.
“We think about the business from different angles, which is a great way to go through a question or problem,” she says. “It makes the communication between us very easy, very natural. We’re talking all the time and we’re bouncing ideas off each other all the time. We listen to each other, but we definitely do not always agree. That’s part of what makes it great. I have probably the most effective relationship with him as a CEO as I’ve ever had.”
Outside of work, Beaver is a committed mother to two children. While taking on life’s various demands, she recognizes that the relationship with herself is also important. For her, “me-time” isn’t a luxury, it’s a tool to help her be present.
One thing she does to stay present and grounded is her dedication to long-distance running. Now, it makes her laugh, because she never had aspirations to be a runner, let alone an ultramarathoner. But initially, it started as a way to escape every parent’s worst nightmare.
Her daughter, Kylie, was diagnosed with cancer at just two years old. Kylie went through chemotherapy for three years, and that was when she started running.
Beaver is an accomplished ultramarathoner who finds that it brings more balance to her life and … [+] career.
Sandra Beaver
“I needed a way to balance life,” she shares. “Everybody says that they couldn’t care for a child that has cancer. But, you can, and you can because you don’t have a choice. You’re going to figure this out. Once you get through something like that, you say, ‘If I can do that, what else can I do that I didn’t think I could do?’ You can do a lot.”
Initially, the distance was insurmountable. Now, her favorite distance is 50 kilometer races, although she has run as many as 100 miles in one race, which took 29 hours. She was fueled by the desire to prove to herself that she could do it.
“You can do a lot more than you give yourself credit for or space for,” Beaver said. “It’s mind-over-matter. An ultra-marathon is very much like that. You don’t know how many times during 100 miles you definitely want to quit. Your whole mindset is telling you that it’s ridiculous, it isn’t safe, and everything hurts. You don’t want to be there. But you will yourself to keep going because you know you’ll be fine.”
As she challenged herself to mentally and physically get through her runs so that she could be there for her family, Kylie improved. She has completely recovered and is now in middle school.
Going through that experience with her family taught Beaver a critical lesson: balance.
“When my daughter got sick, I started gaining a whole different perspective on how much I was investing into things that weren’t as important as I was giving them the space and time for,” she says. “I got this great perspective about how to balance what matters and what doesn’t matter. The other piece is this idea of limitlessness. I look at problems totally differently. I used to look at problems and see all the things that were going to go wrong. You find ways to make things happen that you previously didn’t imagine you could.”
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