The CFO who helped put JonnyPops in America’s freezers

He started out loading trucks and selling pops at farmers’ markets. Now Connor Wray is co-founder and CFO of a fast-growing US frozen treat brand. At SuiteWorld in Las Vegas, he told CFO Magazine A/NZ how a founder’s instincts shape his approach to culture, AI and growth.

For those of us who grew up in Australia, the names alone can bring back a childhood summer. A Bubble O’Bill from the local milk bar, a Golden Gaytime after a day at the beach, or a classic Paddle Pop on a hot day. We all have a favourite.

In the United States, a newer name is working its way onto that list. JonnyPops, the frozen pop brand started by college students in Minnesota, is now sold in all 50 states. Sitting in the CFO chair is one of the founders who once handed them out by hand.

A 14 year overnight success

JonnyPops began in 2012 at St. Olaf College, a small liberal arts school in southern Minnesota. A group of students wanted to make a better-tasting, better-for-you frozen treat. They prototyped pops in a dorm basement and sold them at farmers’ markets around the Twin Cities.

The founders went full time after graduating. Retailer by retailer, region by region, the brand grew into the largest frozen novelty in the US natural channel. It now goes toe to toe with legacy brands in mainstream grocery, stocked in about 80 per cent of traditional supermarkets. Unusually for an emerging brand, JonnyPops makes all of its own products and employs more than 200 people.

Wray is the first to admit his path is not a typical CFO’s. “The co-founder experience is wearing all the hats,” he says. “Someone’s got to unload the truck. Someone’s got to load the truck. You’ve got to make the pops.”

That grounding gives him something many finance leaders aspire to have: a deep understanding of why every part of the business works the way it does.

The CFO who had to stop loading trucks

As the business scaled, “everyone does everything” stopped working. Wray had to find where his skills fitted best and hand the rest over. He calls delegation an ongoing journey.

“I have the founder DNA in me. I enjoy getting my fingers dirty,” he says. “But at some point you have to acknowledge reality. If I operate in that manner, our team and our business will not be able to move forward.”

The harder shift is emotional. A day of meetings spent giving direction and getting decisions approved lacks the tangible satisfaction of rolling up your sleeves.

“Some days I’m in the car on the way home thinking, did I add value today?”

Hiring problem solvers, not box tickers

Wray’s remit covers finance plus technology and administration. JonnyPops runs at a high pace of change, driven first by growth and now by a deliberate push to use technology as a competitive edge. That shapes who he hires.

Reconciling and reporting skills still matter, he says. But he also asks how candidates handle change, whether they enjoy new challenges and whether they think critically on their own. He wants people who push for continuous improvement, not those happiest working through the to-do list that lands on their desk each morning.

Loyalty runs deep. The company’s first full-time hire is still there, now on the manufacturing team. Wray is clear that retention is about mutual choice.

“We want them to be with our organisation because we choose them, and them to be there because they choose us.”

“It’s not an entirely altruistic motive,” he adds. “It’s what works best.”

Why AI starts with clean data

With production running around the clock and distribution expanding, JonnyPops outgrew QuickBooks and moved to Oracle NetSuite. Connecting financials, inventory, orders and fulfilment in one system has cut its monthly close nearly in half, according to NetSuite.

The company is now adopting NetSuite Next, including the Ask Oracle conversational assistant, and the NetSuite AI Connector Service. Staff can ask everyday business questions without waiting on someone else, and build dashboards tailored to their roles.

Yet Wray is candid that AI is only as good as the data beneath it. Seven years of bolting systems together have left reports that rely on quirks only their preparers know: add this, subtract that, pull a line from another part of the P&L. When an executive asks an AI agent directly, those quirks cause trouble.

“Not necessarily incorrect math, but the wrong answer.”

A NetSuite restructuring project slated for 2027 aims to fix that. Wray also sees size as an advantage. Larger rivals, often multinational conglomerates, are big ships that are hard to turn. JonnyPops can move faster, and intends to. “Be what we are, not what we’re not,” he says.

Closing the books becomes table stakes

So what will the CFO look like in five to ten years? Wray points to a statistic from the SuiteWorld product keynote: two-thirds of CFOs now have responsibility for technology or AI initiatives, according to NetSuite.

“I disburse cash, I collect cash, I close the books. That is not going to be the strategically differentiated part of the role.”

Those tasks still have to be done correctly, he says, but better tools will make them more consistent and efficient. The finance function’s real value will be seeing around corners. That means decision support, and clearing the administrative hurdles that once made opportunities such as international expansion too costly to pursue.

CFO horizons?

In the short term, Wray’s team is working through the fourth quarter to lay the AI foundations for how JonnyPops will operate in 2027. Longer term, he is excited about building an AI-native business, confident the core product will hold regardless. Better-tasting, better-for-you frozen treats, he notes, will be in demand whatever anyone thinks of AI.

And Australia and New Zealand? Wray has no immediate partnerships to announce, but the ambition is there. He believes the products, and the way they are made, will appeal beyond American shoppers.

“We would love to bring the product to Australia and New Zealand,” he says.