A Leader for the Times: NOW Health Group's Jim Emme on Thoughtful Leadership

Jim Emme has been the CEO of NOW Health Group since 2014, demonstrating ambitious leadership qualities that have ushered in substantial growth and international expansion for the company without sacrificing its founding values. As the chair of the Natural Product Association’s (NPA; Washington, D.C.) Board of Directors, Emme has also been active in advocating on behalf of industry to regulators and legislators during a time that is both challenging and auspicious for the natural products space. Emme’s leadership is a prime example of how business can be both thoughtful and successful. Nutritional Outlook is happy to recognize Jim Emme as our 2025 Best of the Industry - Industry Leader.

Strong Foundation

"The credit that we get as a company for our quality standards and even the advocacy that I'm involved with, those were all parts of Elwood's strategy and vision, and I'm just executing what he expected.”

Having grown up on a farm in east central Indiana, Emme’s early life set a foundation for strong work ethic and a deep respect for where our food comes from. By the time Emme was in elementary school, the farm had already been in his family for over 100 years. “My first job was weighing the eggs from the chickens, because we would sell some of the eggs to the supermarket, and Mom and Dad would get store credit there,” Emme tells Nutritional Outlook.

In high school, to save money for college, he worked at a butcher shop. “It taught me about sanitation. It taught me about food safety. It taught me about family business,” he explains as he looks back on the time. Emme went on to attend Purdue University’s School of Agriculture to study food science, specifically chemistry. This led to Emme starting his career as a bench top chemist for a flavor division of Pillsbury. Eventually, he got bored of the chemistry side of the business and decided to take a leadership training program to work in operations. In operations and then acquisitions, Emme began to understand the ups and downs of running and working for a publicly traded company. Laying off workers he knew well was a challenging thing for him, and eventually when his division was sold off in an acquisition, Emme also had to find work elsewhere.

“I was always taught to be honest by my parents and my family, but I also realized that big business doesn't always work that way,” says Emme. “And don't get me wrong, big business employs a lot of people and contributes a lot to livelihoods and commerce, but stability is a big deal.”

He worked for a supply-side company for five years before his sister turned him on to a company called NOW Foods, and when there was an opening for a plant manager in 1995, he applied. This was, frankly, a step back for Emme. “I hadn’t been a plant manager for 10 years, and I was actually a little arrogant about it,” he admits, adding that when he went to interview and learned that NOW was an $11 million company, he thought about how he wouldn’t even look at a company that small during his time in acquisitions. Despite that, Emme was attracted to NOW’s story, and when he finally met Elwood Richard, the company’s founder, he was hooked.

“We interviewed for almost three hours,” he recalls. “We were writing down chemical formulas on scrap paper and doing all this and talking about that. And, man, he hooked me on his vision. I just thought, ‘I want to work for this company. I can help them. I can make a difference here, but they can help me, because they really care about what they’re doing.’ The credit that we get as a company for our quality standards and even the advocacy that I'm involved with, those were all parts of Elwood's strategy and vision, and I'm just executing what he expected.”

Leadership at NOW

Emme views his work at NOW as an extension of Richard’s vision. He boasts that the average tenure of NOW’s associates is nine years. “People stay with the company because they trust us and they know us to be honest,” says Emme. “And that's one of the big things Elwood sold me on, was his ethics and values. We're going to make mistakes, but you've always got to try to do the right thing. And he called it doing the right things for the right reasons.”

He notes that one of the promises he made to Richards when he became CEO was that no one can get terminated from NOW Health Group without his approval. Emme kept his word. “There have been times where I've said no, because people are going through family problems, they have a sick child, they have a sick parent, they've got things going on in their life's journey that they could never share with anybody because they didn't feel they could trust anybody,” he explains. “And that's a pretty powerful culture to have as a company, and that's part of our secret.”

"His leadership has helped NPA navigate some of the most complex policy challenges in our industry’s history." —Daniel Fabricant, Natural Products Association

While Emme has endeavored to keep the founding spirit and culture of NOW Health Group alive, he also has big ambitions for NOW as a business. When he began his tenure as CEO, Emme set a big hairy audacious goal for the company. At the time, NOW was about a $200 million company, and he set the challenge of hitting $1 billion in ten years’ time. While some thought that a focus on dollar amount would come across as distasteful, Emme soon learned the opposite. “I did not realize how important it was to have a specific goal like that, that we could rally people,” he reflects. “And well, you know what, we're going to hit it in 11 years; we missed 10 by a little bit, but it was a big, hairy goal. Who knew if we were going to hit it or not, but after a while, we realized we've got momentum, we've got that inertia in our flywheel to keep us going and make it happen.”

Another important goal for Emme was to expand NOW internationally. “We've probably got the strongest international growth of any company our size. And a lot of it is due to the partners that we work with, who market our brand and distribute our brand around the world. In 2014, we were in maybe 18 countries, and now we're in over 100 give or take, depending on the geopolitical situations,” he explains. That expansion is also an important part of NOW’s mission to provide value, products, and services that empower people to live healthier lives.

From Emme’s perspective, this mission is shared by most in the industry, but there are those who are either ill-equipped and sometimes dishonest that can negatively impact consumers and by extension, the reputation of industry. Previously, Nutritional Outlook recognized NOW Health Group as the Best of the Industry, Supplier, for its testing program, which has played a big role in shedding light on inaccurate label claims and adulteration of popular ingredients sold on Amazon. This testing program has not necessarily resulted in substantial change from Amazon or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission, who are also informed of results, but NOW is certainly getting Amazon’s attention. According to Emme, Amazon has acknowledged to NOW that its TIC (Third-party testing, inspection, and certification services) could use some work, so we can anticipate some changes there.

“I will give Amazon a lot of credit for how aggressive they are in addressing counterfeits,” says Emme. “If you can prove a counterfeit, they are swift. They're working very, very closely with the attorney generals and the Department of Commerce and chasing down some of the violators, and they've gotten good at that. And I've suggested to them, if they could apply some of that same zest and detail and resources to the bad actors that are selling substandard products, they would probably do a better job of earning consumer trust. They respect our testing program. They're just very cautious. They seem to be, this is my opinion, very sensitive to being viewed as antitrust. So, they kind of feel that the FDA and FTC should be enforcing some of this stuff. And, you know, we're kind of caught in the middle.”

Additionally, the testing performed by NOW also helps to inform responsible brands that they may need to make a change. “We had a reputable contract manufacturer contact us. I've known him for quite a while, and he said, ‘Hey, one of the products I make is on this list.’ So okay, I said, ‘We'll help you.’ Well, he needs to get a new contract lab, and you know what, if we can help people like that, great,” says Emme. “And we've probably had a dozen stories like that through the years of testing that we've done.”

Spreading awareness and education are invaluable tools. Change doesn’t happen overnight, and NOW, with Emme’s leadership, is helping to identify problems and pave the way for better, safer products. And while regulators have not been actively pursuing the issues exposed by NOW, Emme acknowledges that it has gotten the attention of Capitol Hill.

“Through NPA, we've been advisors to the MAHA commission, [including] the HHS, NIH, EPA, Department of Agriculture. Dr Oz is a big fan of our industry, clearly, and I got to say, he's still a very powerful advocate for our industry, and has the attention of everyone,” says Emme. “And I think we've got a lot of opportunities there that have come out of this testing program. We're not out to get the FDA, we're not out to get Amazon. We are out to get the bad guys and shut them down.”

Government Advocacy

When it comes to advocacy, Emme emphasizes the importance of having a spot at the table, and praises NPA’s access to high-level government officials. At the time of our interview, Emme explained that the following week, the NPA board had 12 bipartisan meetings with both Senate and House members, as well as White House staff to discuss a wide range of issues that include tariffs, state laws restricting weight loss supplements, as well as drug preclusion.

“Yes, the entire board will be heading into a high-level staff meeting with the White House on the issue of annex three and where tariffs are going to go and where our pain points are,” he says. “As a spin off, I'm involved with calls with Treasury Secretary [Scott] Bessent and Commerce Secretary [Howard] Lutnik, individually with a small handful of companies, to weigh in on what's working, what's not. And my experience today is pay attention to Treasury Secretary Bessent, as he seems to have somebody's ear at a very high level.”

Daniel Fabricant, president and CEO of NPA, praises Emme’s leadership as chairman, crediting him for effectively communicating industry priorities in a fraught political landscape. “His leadership has helped NPA navigate some of the most complex policy challenges in our industry’s history (i.e. tariffs), which has inspired everyone to think big about what’s possible,” says Fabricant.

While these times are divisive politically, Emme emphasizes that advocacy has to be bipartisan and that even at times when you have a movement like MAHA that is receptive to your industry, the opportunity is a fleeting one. Not to mention, most change has to be accomplished legislatively. “Things change, and in order to get anything done, you need to have bipartisan support,” he explains. “And probably one of the strongest areas we've got bipartisan support through NPA is with the Senate HELP Committee which oversees Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.” This committee is chaired by Bill Cassidy (R-LA), with Bernie Sanders (D-VT) as ranking member. As Chair of NPA’s Board, Emme understands that you have to interact with government on multiple levels and across both aisles to make substantive change.

“It’s a dynamic environment that changes like the seasons,” says Emme. “I think we're making a lot of good progress with MAHA right now. I think that window has a shelf life on it, and a lot of it doesn't just depend on whether RFK Jr. stays in place. It depends on if Dr. Bhattacharya is there, if Dr. Makary at FDA and Dr. Oz at CMS remain, and they're fully aligned and fans of our products.”

It's not always easy to effect change, and dealing with regulators and legislators can often be a challenge, but for Emme, the best and most common-sense approach to these challenging conversations it to be polite and respectful. How else are you going to keep having a seat at the table?

Click here for more on Nutritional Outlook's 2025 Best of the Industry Awards.