Liquid Death, a beverage company that has become a billion-dollar brand notorious for its hilariously macabre marketing tactics, is bringing on a new CFO. Karim Sadik-Khan, whose first official day is June 4, is set to take the company to the next stage of growth.
Now that the company has made its mark disrupting the beverage industry, Sadik-Khan hopes to use his FP&A and finance marketing experience within traditional beverage conglomerates to help Liquid Death murder its competition. His goal is to improve how the company uses data and increase efficiency within the finance function — all while maintaining the quality of the product and marketing behind the ability to sustain its current level of growth.
Karim Sadik-Khan
![Karim-Sadik-Khan Liquid Death](/imgproxy/EqSIGxf4RREeCA0ATxrtQtzyuQSm-GqeI0ou2Z5fC5o/g:ce/rs:fit:480:480/bG9jYWw6Ly8vZGl2ZWltYWdlLzE1MjE1NTcwMjgzMDQuanBn.webp)
CFO, Liquid Death
First CFO position: 2018
Notable previous positions:
- North American CFO, Beam Suntory
- Senior director of FP&A, Beam Suntory
- Director of marketing finance, PepsiCo
- Manager of marketing finance, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
ADAM ZAKI: You have a strong background in finance marketing and FP&A in the traditional beverage space. Before you joined, what types of conversations were you and your peers having about the way Liquid Death was entering the market?
KARIM SADIK-KHAN: I discovered it more through my wife and kids; they became big fans of the brand. I heard of it and remember thinking, “Water in a can; is that a good idea?” But when my two teenage kids, who are 14 and 15 years old, and my wife were loving the teas, and when I found out they didn’t have any artificial junk in them, I wanted to learn more about the company. I found their marketing fun. I am a big music fan and saw a campaign they did with Live Nation, who is an investor, so I started to see that this company had legs and it interested me.
And then it so happened I was talking to a friend who had done some business with them and I mentioned I thought they were a great brand and they must be a good place to work. I added that I thought what they had done was incredible. He told me he had heard they were looking for a CFO, and the rest is history.
None of the other brands in our industry are doing what Liquid Death is doing right now, and it’s why I am so excited to get started here. We’re giving away a jet — for real. Unlike the other companies that have done this and pulled a switcheroo or a bait and switch at the last moment, we are going to get the winner a jet with hangar space for six months.
Through this, we are going to continue to get earned media value, like what the company saw from the response to the recent collaboration with e.l.f. cosmetics.
Risk is a growing responsibility for CFOs. This company is big on taking risks on the marketing side of things. Stepping into a new role with this type of culture, how do you balance being the skeptic in the room, as any good CFO is, without getting in the way of what has driven success?
SADIK-KHAN: I’ll partner with legal counsel on most of this stuff, but our CEO Mike Cessario has a great sense of making sure nothing is hurtful or mean-spirited. The team he leads has a strong focus on not creating campaigns at the expense of someone else.
The Martha Stewart campaign comes to mind. I thought it was really funny, and lots of people thought it was humorous. There’s a likeness between Liquid Death and Gen Z and millennials that our campaigns are funny, authentic and not hurtful to anyone.
As a company, we’re avoiding what a lot of other companies are not from a positive perspective. We aren’t selling high-sugar products that are bad for the environment, we aren’t greenwashing, we aren't using plastic bottles. Everything we do is in good faith and is humorous. I think we are pointing out some of the real issues in our society, like sustainability, environmentalism, health and wellness. And I think these things are really on trend with our customers, and we can connect with them on these things in a fun way.
Is Liquid Death a canned water company or a marketing company?
SADIK-KHAN: I would say we are an entertaining beverage company. We were once a water company, but the company expanded in both marketing and products at the same time. We have more than just our original Mountain Water now. None of the big brands sell different products under one name, which is a testament to our brand. You don’t see the big brands that have different types of cola or water or lemon-lime soda under one name. Through marketing, the company has been able to create one relevant brand.
“None of the other brands in our industry are doing what Liquid Death is doing right now, and it’s why I am so excited to get started here.”
![](https://d12v9rtnomnebu.cloudfront.net/diveimages/corporate_site/teampage/square_profiles/placeholder-200.png)
Karim Sadik-Khan
CFO, Liquid Death
I think the company has strong merchandise sales like hats and shirts because the brand is cool. Although we’re a beverage company as I mentioned before, we are becoming a lifestyle brand.
What types of technology changes are you looking to make when you officially start? Have you had a chance to look at how they do things yet?
SADIK-KHAN: I spent the last week with folks, including the former CFO, to take a look under the covers at the ways things are done. Like any other company that has rapidly grown faster than anyone could have imagined, one thing I noticed right away is how they were able to keep up with rapidly growing demand for the product they have.
They run NetSuite right now, which has a really strong ERP system, but I think now as we hit this inflection point of going from a venture-backed startup to a really fast-growing large beverage company, we’ll need to leverage that system even more and make sure we are using it every way we can, for reporting and planning and things like that. Right now, it’s being used as more of an accounting system; I am hoping that we can begin getting better reporting data out of those systems.
I have asked myself, ‘How am I going to make sure I am leveraging all of my data, whether it’s syndicated data, depletion data or all of my financial information to create balanced scorecards and get the best visibility into the business from a management perspective?’ I think there’s a lot of room to grow in that area; but it’s expected as they’ve gotten this brand off the ground to a massive scale with distribution partners like Walmart and Amazon.
"A good CFO doesn’t make a decision-making process binary, meaning only yes or no; they are listening to source ways in which those within the organization believe they can help solve the businesses’ problems."
![](https://d12v9rtnomnebu.cloudfront.net/diveimages/corporate_site/teampage/square_profiles/placeholder-200.png)
Karim Sadik-Khan
CFO, Liquid Death
But if we are going to continue to grow and get bigger, we will need to be as efficient as we can with our data and our ability to leverage NetSuite and then eventually look at other software solutions that we can continue to leverage.
In an ideal world, what does your day-to-day look like in early Q1 of 2025?
SADIK-KHAN: I view myself as a strategic CFO. So, at that point, hopefully, we have a tight process about closing the books, reporting, financial planning and having those processes words into the organization. During this, I also hope to have the time to keep up with industry blogs and the press surrounding corporate finance so I can understand what’s going on in the greater business environment.
I would also like to have a clear way to define how we are doing within the context of our expectations as a finance team, and doing so in a way that is in sync with our marketing and retail partners to make sure that we are all on the same page of implementing our strategic agenda.
A good CFO doesn’t make a decision-making process binary, meaning only yes or no; they are listening to source ways in which those within the organization believe they can help solve the businesses’ problems. And so by that time, I would like to not only have some of these systems in place but also have all the information and team members I need to help support the business and overcome our challenges.