S4 EP6: Sales, Finance and the Long Game | Chris Tucker & Piyush Mittal, SC Johnson

A podcast special: two [axr] podcasts, one conversation. Andrew Cannock (Your Future in Sales and Marketing) and Dave Goldbach (From Go to CFO) sit down together with Chris Tucker, Sales Director, and Piyush Mittal, Finance Director at SC Johnson, to unpack what a genuine partnership between sales and finance looks like inside an FMCG business.

Chris and Piyush trace very different paths to the top of their functions. Chris rose through a linear sales career at PepsiCo before moving into SC Johnson's Australian sales leadership, including a global customer marketing stint in the US. Piyush has spent 23 years at SC Johnson, moving from commercial finance in India, to supply chain in Malaysia, to finance leadership in Australia. Both land on the same lesson: breadth across functions, markets and cultures builds better decision-makers.

The conversation moves into SC Johnson itself, a 140-year-old, fifth-generation family business behind brands including Glade, Raid, Ziploc, Drano, Windex and Sun Bum, and what it means to make long-term calls, on sustainability, on investment, without the pressure of quarterly reporting. Chris and Piyush are candid about where sales and finance pull in different directions, and what keeps that tension productive rather than destructive: shared visibility of the full P&L, finance in the room from the start of a proposal rather than at sign-off, and a habit of weighing 'the cost of doing nothing' alongside any ROI case.

They close with the advice they'd give their younger selves: get broad experience early and surround yourself with people you can learn from.

If this conversation has you thinking about your own next move, in sales, finance or leadership, get in touch with the team at [axr] Recruitment & Search.