Why she went from pastry chef to Rivian
CFO: 'You need to show up and deliver'
She controls the money.
Yet Claire Rauh McDonough confesses that she never, ever could have imagined herself as a chief financial officer of an automaker, let alone an electric car company built from scratch in the past 16 years.
At Rivian Automotive Inc., she thrives on audacious ideas and industry disruption.
“One of my core mantras is, ‘get comfortable being uncomfortable.’ I worked as the only woman and only non-French person in a kitchen with 52 French men. If you can do that, you can kind of step into any room and figure things out,” McDonough told me. “You need to show up and deliver in a high-paced, high-pressure environment.”
The San Francisco native, who grew up in Greenwich, Conn., has been a key player for nearly five years at Rivian. Based in Irvine, Calif., with manufacturing facilities in Normal, Illinois, the company sells directly to U.S. customers.
McDonough, 44, went directly from global investment banking at J.P. Morgan to a startup with a mission to help preserve the planet for future generations through the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption. It’s all about generating cash flow to pour into technology, research and development and creating more consumer choices.
Owners of its high performance pickup truck and a three-row SUV — known as an R1T and an R1S — report the highest satisfaction of any vehicle brand, according to Consumer Reports.
Listening to McDonough discuss during a recent dinner in Detroit the nuances of a dynamic industry that faces constant geopolitical drama, it is intriguing to think that her training for this cutthroat industry happened in the kitchen.
When McDonough informed her entrepreneur father that she was abandoning the pre-med program at Duke University to focus on becoming a chef, he rejoiced. Her mother — a former criminal prosecutor in San Francisco — worried about risk and stability for the adventurous young woman.
Yet McDonough never looked back. She was used to hard work and demanding schedules. Duke recruited her out of the elite Greenwich Academy private school for girls to play field hockey.
Pushing to win — ‘even when things are hard’
The team went from a losing record to the championship game during her four years, and continued to excel. “It was really starting a new dynasty,” she said.
Operating as an athlete at that level is like having a job very early on, given the level of commitment to the team physically and mentally, McDonough said: “It’s also about making sure, after a goal is scored against you, that you’re ready to get your head together and compete again. You need to win even when things are hard and you’re not necessarily feeling your best.”
That resilience has been essential at Rivian, she said.
“The other piece is being able to play any role on the team and knowing when you need to step-up as the action player, or catalyst, or spark — knowing when your words, even from the sideline, can drive impact in how you’re helping to support others,” McDonough said. “I think there’s a sort of selflessness in putting the team first — that’s something I’ve always carried through life.”
Conviction and confidence
These days, while top executives at automakers globally are tearing up plans that directed billions of dollars to design and manufacture all-electric vehicles, the leadership team at Rivian isn’t blinking despite federal policy turning away from promoting EV adoption. The company on Tuesday reported a better-than-expected adjusted loss of 65 cents per share.
Competitors cite a slow rate of consumer adoption paired with the loss of support for consumer incentives that inspired buyers to pivot from gas-powered to battery-powered vehicles. For Rivian, focus remains on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that speed climate change.
“When you’re in an environment where you can feel it and see it and know that this is what everybody will want, you have a different level of conviction and confidence,” McDonough said during a recent meeting with reporters in downtown Detroit.
While other automakers refocus on building cars with internal combustion engines (ICE), Rivian is staying the course with optimism. She noted:
Rivian today is the bestselling electric SUV over $70,000. It’s the bestselling SUV — ICE or EV — in California and Washington.
Rivian is not yet a household name and has incredible room for consumer growth. People often ask who makes Rivian, not realizing that Rivian makes Rivian, not Ford or General Motors or Volkswagen.
While auto loan delinquencies and repossessions are climbing industrywide to levels not seen since the Great Recession, Rivian is uniquely positioned with customers who have credit scores higher than 800, on average. (A score of 800 or higher is considered exceptional, with 850 being a perfect score.)
When a Tuesday is not just a Tuesday
Understanding the Rivian clientele comes naturally, McDonough said: “Having worked in a number of very high-end kitchens, you’re working for a customer who may have waited years for this experience. To you it might just be Tuesday night but for them this is the pinnacle of a celebration.”
“The same is true as you think about a car. Our customers at Rivian have waited, especially in early days, they may have waited years for this vehicle and they expect the vehicle to have the quality and craftsmanship that they’ve been anticipating throughout all of that time. So how we show up is not just how we are operating on a Tuesday but how we’re showing up for a customer who has been waiting for this.”
To study in an immersive summer culinary program in France, McDonough had to convince her college coach to let her train with a French field hockey team. Upon return to the states, she paired with pastry chef Jacques Torres at the Food Network in New York City. He later suggested that she go to the south of France to continue her training. And she did.
Cakes and tarts — ‘work of pure beauty’
McDonough worked at the luxurious Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France, which is like studying film under Francis Ford Coppola in Hollywood.
“You’re not necessarily bustling in the same way a traditional kitchen would,” she said. “There was lots of time for learning and development and growth and they were doing fantastic things in that kitchen … The hotel catered to sort of the elite clientele. We were able to do an entire dessert buffet for Paul Allen’s yacht, for example. All different assortment of cakes and tarts that were just a work of pure beauty.”
(Allen, a billionaire philanthropist who co-founded Microsoft, died in 2018.)
McDonough’s culinary training focused on savory skills but injury changed the plan.
“I have cold hands because I got hypothermia swimming in the San Francisco Bay in a triathlon,” McDonough explained. “To be a pastry chef, it’s fantastic to have cold hands. So that was part of my pivot into the pastry field, Jacques recognizing this trait that I had. He said, ‘You must go fully into the patisserie business.’ You don’t melt the butter so you can operate with doughs. If you think about a croissant, or something like that, where you’re doing multiple folds of butter into the pastry itself, you can touch and operate a number of doughs and products but it’s not going to melt it.”
From croissants to cold cash
After leaving France, she worked for Michel Richard in Washington, D.C.
“He’s known for being a very creative and whimsical chef, well known for his pastry work. It’s the surprise and delight of what the culinary experience can be,” McDonough said. “He was one of the first chefs that truly created theater. The entire restaurant was stadium tables … The kitchen was at the bottom, completely lit up, all glass walls. So you were the attraction. You were the entertainment for the night as the chef on the floor at Citronelle.”
Wanting to pursue her passion for food but wanting to understand the business operations side, McDonough earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Investment banking exposed her to, well, everything. When she noticed the impact of technology on consumers, including food consumers, she went in a different direction and helped start a tech investment team at J.P. Morgan and served as co-head of “disruptive commerce.”
RJ Scaringe, Rivian CEO and founder, who earned engineering degrees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reached out to McDonough.
In the end, a move to Rivian made total sense and she joined in January 2021. “One of the heaviest lifts I’ve ever done, in the 10 months that followed, in getting us ready” to offer stock to the public for the first time.
The company, which employs approximately 14,000 people at locations including Plymouth, Mich., has a market value of $16.46 billion.
By comparison, Wall Street lists the market value of legacy automakers Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. at $52.32 billion and $64.45 billion, respectively.
Are people unhappy with Ferrari?
Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports, said Rivian vehicles do “phenomenally well” on road tests “with incredible performance and handling and acceleration.” He doesn’t see a conflict between the fact that the brand has the highest satisfaction rating and a low reliability rating that can involve electrical or technical issues.
“If you’re looking for a Rivian, your priorities are different from someone buying a Toyota Sienna. You’re an early adopter, on the leading edge of technology,” Fisher said. “Satisfaction is about, ‘Did I get what I thought I was getting?’ We see the same thing with sports cars. Are people unhappy with Ferrari because they’re not as reliable as Toyota? No. With an R1T, you’ve got a pickup that has the performance of a supercar.”
No ‘outlandish promises’
Dr. Byron Pitts, 41, an emergency room doctor from Greenville, South Carolina, told Shifting Gears that he just traded his Rivian truck for a Rivian SUV. He previously owned a Tesla Model Y.
“At Rivian, they seem to actually care about you,” Pitts told me. “I heard a light clicking noise at a low speed on my truck, and I told them during my next service. They put me in a rental and replaced my whole motor. Just zero trouble. Interaction is just super easy and painless. They’re just very reasonable about repairs.”
His wife Lauren, a U.S. Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan, is an ER doc, too. They have a 20-month-old baby and a Great Dane.
“I bought a truck that does truck stuff. I’ve moved several thousands of pounds of concrete,” Pitts said. “I have a big, heavy, safe SUV now. Rivian isn’t trying to make outlandish promises that they’re not delivering on. The thing I like is I don’t feel like Rivian advertises to me. They were demonstrating a product I wanted.”
These days, Rivian is planning to begin production in 2026 of a smaller electric SUV the R2, that begins at $45,000 with a 300-mile range. It’s expected to compete with the Tesla Model Y.
“My mom … she’s in her late 70s,” McDonough said. “She’s like, ‘I love you Claire, and I love Rivian, but I just can’t drive a three-row SUV or truck. But I’m your first customer for an R2.”
The CFO cited other reasons that Rivian plans to see profits grow:
Investment in autonomy that will give people “the ultimate luxury” of time, so that drive time may be used for activity other than driving.
Cost reduction overall in updated designs and supplier price negotiations and deciding where to pare back in areas such as battery investment. Aggressive monitoring of supply chain costs. Lithium, which is critical in electric vehicles, costs $10 per kilogram now, down from more than $80 in 2022, she noted.
Increasing partner successes with companies including Amazon through technology developments including better drive dynamics, drive range and other performance issues.
Working with the Volkswagen Group joint venture. “They had worked with their supplier for 18 months to make one modification to their seat. In less than two weeks, these seats were giving massages and being maneuvered entirely with our software … They just couldn’t believe you could have this level of freedom through the work that we’re doing.”
Separately, Bloomberg reported in 2024 that Rivian reached an unusual agreement to take a neutral stance toward the UAW organizing the Normal, Ill., factory based on various criteria including profitability metrics. The company is not profitable at this time though gains have been measurable. Its workers are not unionized.
McDonough’s children, ages 7 and 9, follow in the footsteps of their mother and grandfather when it comes to thinking creativity about consumer technology. They ride in the vehicles and hear about new features as they evolve.
The children love to hear about the latest over-the-air updates that Rivian software allows, McDonough said, smiling. “They want to read the release notes and understand what new capabilities they have … It’s thinking ahead about what can come next.”
Editor’s note: While working on this story, Phoebe Wall Howard talked about the Rivian brand during a social gathering in Michigan. One of the guests, a nurse, said his nephew owned a Rivian — Why not give him a shout and see how it’s going? That’s how Dr. Byron Pitts of South Carolina ended up in this story.
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I’m honored to be part of The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative — which offers a fresh mix of political analysis, features and news from a Heartland perspective.
So admire your estimable ability to address and immerse yourself into subjects which bring them into a focus that I had previously thought cloudy. And, the first time I noticed a Rivian, knowing nothing about its origins, you’ve made feel like familiar. Such a gift, and your prolific storytelling is backed by a very strong motor. Thanks.
What an interesting career progression.