Founded | 2002
Headquarters | Gilbert, AZ
Top Executives:
Sharron Walsh / Chief Executive Officer
Joshua Plant, Ph.D. / Chief Scientific Officer
Product Category | Health and Wellness
It’s been a season of transition and transformation at Isagenix, but this health and wellness leader feels stronger than ever and believes that the best is yet to come—not just for their customers, field and leadership—but for the entire direct selling industry.
Committed to Legacy
Every founder-owned company faces the possibility of an ownership change at some point in its story, and Isagenix is no exception. After founding Isagenix in 2002, Jim and Kathy Coover led their company for over twenty years, building a business that they hoped would last long after their leadership.
“When Jim and Kathy founded Isagenix, it was always with a view that it would become a legacy company,” shared Sharron Walsh, Isagenix Chief Executive Officer. “The legacy is really about the people who’ve built Isagenix—the field—that they can pass it on through their family, and that this company can continue to thrive and exist when we are all long retired. Looking for a new ownership structure that supported that legacy view was really, really important for us.”
In early 2023, Isagenix leadership announced that they’d found what they were looking for and had restructured the company’s ownership, transitioning majority ownership to key financial stakeholders. The news was exciting for the entire Isagenix community and had been years in the making, but those years had also been filled with criticism from an unexpected voice—peers within the direct sales industry.
“It was a challenging time,” Sharron shared. “But it was the right time. So, now we have this freedom that it’s all behind us. But there was a lot of talk, a lot of speculation, and unfortunately it was inside our own industry. It was the companies and people inside the industry that made it so unnecessarily painful for us. The external voices, the fearmongering—it was a challenge for the field. People should have been rooting for us, not trying to tear us down.”
The disappointment and frustration only inspired Sharron, her team and leaders in the field to work harder to change the industry from the inside out.
“I hope that the corporate leaders and the field leaders understand that we truly are all in this together,” Sharron explained. “There is so much. There is abundance. There is enough for all of us to do well. And when one company does well, it’s encouraging for everybody else.”
Guided by Science
Isagenix sprints into this new season with a new ownership that financially and strategically supports the company’s vision, as well as fresh energy from both leadership and the field. All of this “new-ness” is grounded by the consistency of Isagenix’s science and the proven results of its product line. Historically, the company has focused on weight loss as an entry point to better health. Today, the complete Isagenix catalog addresses a more holistic view of health with products that address a range of health goals from stress management to healthy aging to immunity and more.
“The foundation that put Isagenix on the map was a wonderful and revolutionary way of helping individuals lose weight,” explained Joshua Plant, Ph.D., Isagenix’s Chief Scientific Officer. “When we go back 20 years, that was a very strong motive for a lot of individuals, that was the beacon that showed them that they were healthy or not. As a society, we’ve matured and learned health is a little bit more of an abstract component than just your waist size. And Isagenix is evolving in that area to make sure that we too understand that wellbeing is more than that. We’ve done over 18 different clinical studies and where these are evolving to is showing that individuals who embrace the Isagenix system not only lose weight and increase lean muscle mass but also have a higher quality of life, meaning they feel more full; they feel happier; they feel more satisfied.”
While the original 30-Day Reset continues to be a bestseller for Isagenix, a new favorite emerged in recent years that now represents 30 percent of the company’s business. The Collagen Elixir™ was launched in 2020 and quickly appealed to the company’s customer base because of its convenient, ready-to-drink shot format—and the fact that it had exceptional clinical data.
“Independent researchers were able to show that this product actually stimulates your own collagen production; diminishes the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles; evens skin tone; and improves moisture,” Joshua shared. “It was a remarkable study. In fact, it’s one of the only studies that I’ve come across where all the participants compared to the placebo actually had a benefit.”
For the last four years, Isagenix has been developing a product that the team believes will forever change the wellness space—a new take on the multivitamin. Multivitamins have been a facet of the health and wellness industry the better part of the last 100 years with very little evolution. They represent more business than weight loss products by a long shot.
Isagenix boils down to three simple things: simple, proven and natural. The products are designed to make a customer’s life simple. Isagenix has invested millions of dollars in partnering with universities for clinical studies; this allows universities to research and publish the research about the products without any bias, regardless of the outcomes of the studies. Whether the results are good or bad, results are published and proven. Isagenix focuses on natural, high-quality, no-compromise, functional ingredients.
And they are just getting started.
Grounded by Culture
Navigating an ownership transition amidst challenging industry chatter on the heels of a global pandemic would be overwhelming to most field teams, but these obstacles have only strengthened the already tight-knit culture at Isagenix.
“Coming out of what already was a challenging period in everybody’s life, we entered into a process that the average associate doesn’t understand— restructuring and reorganizing your capital structure and what a transfer of ownership would mean.” Sharron shared. “It was a challenge for them. But we’ve always been very transparent with our leadership, so they understand what it is we’re doing. And to their credit, they really endured, stayed focused, looked after their teams, and we came through it in great shape.”
To usher the Isagenix field into this exciting new chapter, Sharron recruited one of the company’s most successful leaders and brought her into a corporate role as Head of Field Training and Development. Industry veteran Lisa DeMayo stepped into this new position in September 2023 after building her Isagenix business for over 11 years and growing through the leadership ranks with another direct sales company for a decade before that. An accomplished author and speaker, she’ll be using her experience to support and grow leaders at every level in the field.
While the company is already known for its generous compensation program, Isagenix recently released a new leadership incentive program that encourages aspiring leaders to grow.
“Instead of being developed by our sales and promotions teams, I went to the analysts that have been driving, building and analyzing our compensation plan for years,” Sharron said. “I asked them if you could build a program that really rewarded people who were in the trenches building today, what would it look like? They put together something that I think is going to be a foundational program for people joining Isagenix and also for people that have been with us for a long time. I’m most excited about watching that play out. I’m seeing people win again.”
The field response to this new incentive program has been incredible, adding to the momentum that’s been building at Isagenix since the ownership transition was finalized early last year.
From the December 2023 issue of Direct Selling News magazine.
