Carl Johnson

Retired Chairman of the Board, Nautilus, Inc.

Carl has recalibrated and transformed CPG and Health & Wellness Brands for four decades, consistently catapulting brands and shareholder/Private Equity value as both a senior general management leader and board director.

Carl retired as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nautilus, Inc. (NLS, NYSE) in August 2022 after 11 years and 12 years as a director. He also served as interim Nautilus CEO from March 2019 through July 2019. He joined the Board of Directors of Vespa Parent LLC (part of Vespa Management Holdco LLC, private) in October, 2018 and continues in this role. He joined the Board of Directors of CHW Acquisition Corporation in December, 2020, which merged with Wag Labs, a digital pet services company, in August, 2022. Earlier in his career, Carl served as a board director of Akers Bioscience, and Avedro, both private medical companies now public.

In October, 2015, Carl retired as Executive Vice President, Marketing and Chief Growth Officer of Big Heart Pet Brands, subsequently acquired by J. M. Smucker Company. In this role, he had line and operating responsibility for the company’s widely distributed brands, and the innovation, marketing and creative services, consumer and customer insights, communications and government relations groups, and the company’s Canadian subsidiary. He joined Del Monte Foods, a privately owned manufacturer and marketer of processed foods, and the predecessor of Big Heart Pet Brands, in November 2011 as Executive Vice President, Brands and Chief Growth Officer. From 2001 until April 2011, Carl served as Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of the Campbell Soup Company, a producer of canned soups and related products, where he had direct responsibility for corporate strategy, research and development, quality, corporate marketing services, licensing, and e-business. Carl joined Campbell from Kraft Foods, where he ran three successively larger business divisions. Earlier in his career, he held management positions at Colgate-Palmolive and Polaroid Corporation and served as head of the Consumer Goods consulting practice at Marketing Corporation of America.

Carl completed a 2016 Fellowship at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative and a 2017 Fellowship at Stanford University’s Distinguished Careers Institute. He holds an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the University of Chicago and Bachelor of Arts in Government and Economics from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. He served as an executive committee member of the External Advisory Board at the Agricultural Sustainability Institute, University of California, Davis from 2007 to 2019. Mr. Johnson is a trustee of the Adelphic Educational Fund, Wesleyan University, which grants scholarships and supports educational, literary and artistic programs. He also served for 15 years as a member of the Steering Committee of the Kilts Center for Marketing at the University of Chicago (Booth) Graduate School of Business, which provides scholarships to top marketing students and helps the school steer its marketing curriculum. Carl is a member of the Nutrition Round Table, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, and also serves as lead advisor to Monj Health, a digital behavior change platform company aimed at addressing high cost chronic disease conditions resulting from the obesity epidemic.