Steve Voskuil (BBA ’91) has always delighted in the sights, sounds, and smells of a busy manufacturing floor.
It’s a sensory experience he first enjoyed as a wide-eyed kid—and one that still puts a smile on his face as a successful executive.
“I love numbers, but what I love most is watching candy roll off the line,” Voskuil says. “It’s the smell of fresh chocolate and peanut butter, but it’s also having the ability to talk to and learn from the people working on the line. It’s one of my favorite parts of the job.”
It’s an attitude and outlook that might easily earn Voskuil the label of kid at heart. But, paired with deep experience and expertise, they’re also qualities that make him the perfect person for the job of senior vice president and chief financial officer at The Hershey Company. Driven by a love of consumer brands, finance, and people, Voskuil jumped at the opportunity to join Hershey in 2019 after a successful career at Kimberly-Clark and its spinoff companies.
“There’s something really special about the role that Hershey’s brands play in people’s lives,” he says. “The company’s purpose is to make more moments of goodness. To be able to do that every day was very attractive and is what ultimately brought me to Hershey. Making the world smile a little bit more is a great thing to be able to do.”
Unwrapping opportunities
Growing up in Oostburg, Wisconsin, Voskuil developed an early interest in business thanks in part to his father, an accountant at a Milwaukee manufacturing plant. Frequent visits to the plant with his dad included studying how the books were balanced at the end of each quarter. The interest in numbers stuck, eventually putting him on the path to earning a finance degree at the Wisconsin School of Business.
After settling in Madison with his wife, Colette (BSE ’91), Voskuil got to work and spent what felt like countless hours in the Commerce Building’s booming B10 lecture hall mastering the fundamentals of business and their practical applications, which came in handy after landing his first job out of college.
“I remember how quickly I started using those same formulas, same principles, and same research studies from my classes,” he says. “Even now, I use those foundational principles every day.”
That first job was with Kimberly-Clark, which offered the chance to work with high-profile consumer brands and join a finance program with plenty of room for growth. “Kimberly-Clark was great about really investing in talent,” Voskuil says. “If you were willing to put in the work, to be flexible, and to take chances, there were countless opportunities for growth.”
Voskuil dove into the program and would gradually build a diverse and lengthy career with Kimberly-Clark, ascending through roles across finance, sales, and mergers and acquisitions. What started with a job that he initially thought might keep him and his growing family in Wisconsin took him across the country and the globe, with stops in South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, California, and England.
“Making the world smile a little bit more is a great thing to be able to do.”
—Steve Voskuil (BBA ’91)
Then, in 2014, a new opportunity arose when Kimberly-Clark decided to spin off its small but profitable health care supply business into an independent company—and its new CEO knew exactly who he wanted by his side. For Voskuil, joining Halyard Health, now Avanos Medical, was a rare and valuable chance to take a company public.
“It was a great opportunity to learn how to be the CFO of a public company,” he says. “We had to raise capital, hire teams from scratch, build the investor thesis, and so much more. It was such a formative experience.”
After a few years with the new company, Voskuil received a phone call from a former colleague with a tip about an open CFO role at a very prominent public company, and one that promised working with a whole new echelon of beloved brands.
The candy man can
When he’s not taking in the view of the iconic Hershey smokestacks from his office window, Voskuil is creating capital allocation plans, driving shareholder value, and leading the company’s more than 400 finance employees across the globe.
He’s a key strategic partner to Hershey’s CEO and takes immense pride in balancing tradition while infusing innovation into the 130-year-old company, such as expanding its product portfolio to include salty snacks like SkinnyPop Popcorn and Dot’s Pretzels.
“A good CFO has to love the commercial part of the business,” he says. “That integration is really important.”
Like any executive role, the job has its challenges, including fluctuating commodity prices and changing consumer tastes; but it also has some neat perks, including being among the first to test Hershey’s innovation pipeline of treats and snacks.
However, Voskuil says the biggest perk of all is being able to embrace the charitable vision of the company’s founder, Milton Hershey, through the Hershey Trust Company. Established in 1905, the trust supports several charitable initiatives, including the Milton Hershey School, which provides a high-quality, no-cost educational experience for children from lower income families. It’s also where Voskuil and his wife frequently volunteer their time.
So perhaps it’s not surprising then that when he’s not crunching numbers (or salty snacks), supporting the school’s students (“Nothing keeps you young quite like taking a dozen teenage boys to a hockey game,” he quips), or spending time with his own three children (all business majors themselves), Voskuil is focused on building something much bigger than himself at Hershey. It’s a personal aspiration shaped by his own leadership style—but it’s also one that undoubtedly would have made Milton Hershey himself smile.
“One of my career goals has always been to leave the business better than when I found it and then hand it off to a really great team,” he says. “I’m most proud of being able to develop the next generation of leaders who can carry this company forward long after I’m gone. That’s where your power, your impact, and your legacy really lie.”