The man behind the scenes

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I'm a CPG industry veteran of 35 years. It all started in 1989, when I began my career as a delivery driver for a local beer & wine wholesaler. Here, I learned how the Independent Convenience and Liquor channels operated and began to understand the On-Premise customer. From there, I expanded my skillset by moving to the non-alc side of things at Coca-Cola Enterprises, a distributor owned by The Coca-Cola Company. This broadened my knowledge of the industry by working in a centralized system of sales and distribution. In 2011, I accepted a role at early craft icon, Jones Soda, which was my first job managing distributor and retailer relationships. But, after one year, the role was eliminated. It was then my former boss from CCE reached out and offered me a job at Honest Tea, a brand that had just been acquired by The Coca-Cola Company. Even though I was back at Coca-Cola, I was now working for their Venturing and Emerging Brands division, where we worked under the leadership of entrepreneur and Honest Tea co-founder, Seth Goldman. I began to really gain an understanding of what it takes to build a brand; production, forecasting, hiring, buying POS, gaining key account authorizations, signing distribution partners, having social media presence, field marketing, merchandising, managing P&L... the list goes on. We managed other brands in Coke's VEB portfolio, as well, including ZICO Coconut Water, illy Coffee, Peace Tea and Hubert's Lemonade. I learned it takes an entrepreneurial mindset to manage these smaller, low-velocity brands, as they command a lot of attention while having limited resources. In 2018, Coca-Cola began to scale back its VEB division. Since then, I've worked mostly in the start-up or emerging brands space, where I've been able to use my wealth of experience consulting with founders and investors in Fractional Roles, helping them save costs and sell cases.