When it comes to the natural foods business, almost nobody knows it better than John Maggio. In his 20s, John and his brother successfully launched Boulder Potato Chip Company. Since selling that business, he’s been involved with the launch of over 100 new products, including Poore Brothers Chips, Bob’s Texas Style Chips, the TGIF brand, Rokkits, Colorado Spice, Tambobamba, Backpacker’s Pantry and Shrewd Foods, the first-ever gluten free and sugar free brownie. Although I haven’t had the opportunity to pick up one of his brownies at Whole Foods, I hear they are delicious.

In addition to launching those products, John is a partner at American Outdoor Products, which operates Backpacker’s Pantry, Astronaut Ice Cream and Colorado Spice.

Here are some interesting things you’ll learn while reading this interview:

• Becoming successful in the Natural Foods Industry is not just about luck. You must succeed at brand building and being first to market
• When launching a natural foods products, claim your own region first and then go national
• You must template your product launch the right way so that when you do get into a national chain, you will know how to survive it

The Interview

John, what is American Outdoor Products?

At American Outdoor Products, we have a 57 year old brand of backpacking food called Backpacker’s Pantry, we have a 30 year old freeze dried novelty product called Astronaut Ice Cream, and we have our Colorado Spice Company, for which we have retail, food service and industrial lines.

In the busy season, which is the middle of the summer, we operate in a 25,000 square foot space with about 50 to 55 employees. Because we are a manufacturer, we put the ingredients together. We might have a thousand ingredients in-house at any one time, so there are a lot of moving parts.

What’s the corporate culture like at American Outdoor Products?

American Outdoor Products allows me to sit here at nine in the morning and talk to you. I don’t have to be there at six in the morning until eight at night. It’s a lifestyle business. We have a lot of people that bike to work. If you have jeans on and a nice shirt, you’re probably the best dressed guy there. It’s a fun business.

How did you learn about American Outdoor Products?

The Colorado Spice division made seasoning for my old company, Boulder Potato Chips, when we first started making flavors. I knew them for a long time. I paid them for a long time as a vendor. We were a great customer and they were a great vendor.

At what age did you start Boulder Potato Chips?

When my brother and I were about ten in Rockford, Illinois, we started eating this product called Old Salty’s. At the time in Rockford there were three brands that weren’t Frito; Old Salty’s, Mr. G, and Mrs. Fischers. My Dad knew and worked with, as an attorney, the gentleman that started Old Salty’s, so we ate that product growing up. It was a thick, kettle style and as it turns out, a really junky potato chip high in saturated fat. That’s how I found out about potato chips.

I never had any real passion for potato chips and never thought, “This is what I’m going to do with my life.” When I graduated from the University of Miami [Florida], I played professional sports. I was a professional golfer for two and a half years. I tried to play in every tour that they would consider me for. I’ll paraphrase somebody else’s line when I say that my career started off slow and then just tapered off from there.

After leaving Florida, I went to an entrepreneurs program at the Kellogg School at Northwestern. Literally after that program, all I could think of was, “geez, this guy’s potato chip company [Old Salty’s] is 50 miles away. We could be in the North Shore of Chicago through Milwaukee. There are nine million people here that he’s not going to because he’s stuck in this little Winnebago County. So we got him real excited about selling his company and he was willing to do that. Then the price kept going up and then he wasn’t sure if he wanted to sell. He’s now 70 and his nephew runs the business.

My plans kind of turned to dust and I moved to Colorado on a whim and ended up realizing there wasn’t anything like this potato chip company out here. So Boulder Potato Chips started.

How did you know how to start a potato chip company?

This gentleman in Illinois was instrumental in helping us learn some of the top broad-brush parts of the business. The rest of it was trial by fire.

At first, we were going to build a manufacturing plant. Then I went and visited some guys who built equipment. They told me that I was crazy, but said that they had just lost their biggest customer and would be happy to make me a product. We modeled the business plan around doing that.

What did you learn from the potato chip business?

It taught me distribution. I was always at the back of grocery stores and retail shops.

We had a distributor in Denver called Rainbow Natural Foods, which is now the Midwest group of the largest natural food distributor in the world. I remember going in there and there was a banner that said they did a million dollars that week in revenue with 40,000 SKUs. Now they do a million dollars every eight minutes. At that time, the whole industry was $6 billion worldwide and now its $58 billion in the United States alone.

How does the natural products industry landscape look?

We, like many other industries, have an issue of consolidation. Even with all of the sales people and brokers, we don’t have many customers anymore. Maybe 900 customers bought from the backpacking side of our business, but only 10 of them account for 92% of the business.

It seems as though every mom and pop has a natural foods product that they’d like to sell, especially here in Boulder. How competitive is this market?

I tell people that if there’s an industry that isn’t competitive, tell me what it is because I’ll do that. Certainly being a potato chip business when there is an 800lb gorilla in Frito-Lay and PepsiCo is a monstrous task. With that being said, yes, there are a lot of mom and pops that have a lot of products. But there is also a lot of what I would call “farmers market” kind of products. They don’t have extendibility outside the region and maybe outside a couple stores. They haven’t done the job of building up their brand.

How important is brand building?

I’ll give you an example with Shrewd Foods. We have a brownie. If Whole Foods wanted to come out with a brownie, they’d have a brownie in four days that was gluten-free and sugar free.

The race is to get somebody or a lot of somebody’s to wrap their arms around your brand and make you their guy. There is only so much you can do with seasoning and the rest is brand extension and the ability to innovative and make yourself stand apart.

Say I had a natural foods product and I wanted to bring it to a national chain like Whole Foods. As someone who doesn’t have much experience in that, is it possible?

It’s almost impossible if you don’t know how to do it. You could really misstep and one misstep could put the sword in the heart of the whole proposition.

People come to me and ask, “How do I do this?” If I decide to help those companies, I can bring them through this process and to the right channels.

What qualities do you look for in a company when deciding whether you will help them?

Number one is the people. Number two is the market. Gluten free is growing like crazy. Organic is growing like crazy. It’s a rocket ship that gives you the best success as a small brand and can help you with your exit strategy. 

In general, what advice can you offer people who want to become entrepreneurs?

If you want your dream to happen, be willing to let go of the reigns. Stick to your strengths and find the right people to help you with the other parts of the business.

John, thanks for spending time with me to talk about your experiences in the Natural Foods Industry.

For those that have an interest in contacting John, he’s graciously offered to publish his email (johnfmaggio [at] comcast.net)

Related Links:

American Outdoor Products
Shrewd Foods

What does it take to be one of the greatest technology venture capitalists and what are the secrets to identifying successful business opportunities?

I wanted to find out the answers to these questions, so I invited Jason Mendelson, Managing Director of the Foundry Group, to be interviewed for The Creative Connector.

Here are some interesting things you’ll learn while reading this interview:

• One of the characteristics commonly found among successful entrepreneurs is the ability to adapt to a constantly changing business environment
• Investing in business themes can sometimes be more effective than investing in specific sectors
• To gain trust from others, it is important to be transparent in business dealings

And in addition to Jason’s involvement in venture capital, I learned that he co-owns the record label, Toothless Monkey. The Label includes the production of his band “Soul Patch”. Soul Patch’s songs can be bought on iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon.com and can be heard for free on Facebook.

The Interview

Jason, what exactly do you do?

I’m one of the five Managing Directors of the Foundry Group, which is a $225 million dollar fund for early stage technology investments. That means I’m seeking out and finding new companies to invest in and then helping those companies succeed.

What do you feel are your strengths as a venture capitalist?

I was originally a lawyer from back in the old days, but before that I was a software engineer. So I’m a guy who’s got a technical background, plus I’ve got a legal background. At Mobius, I was also in charge of the financial back office for a while and was the COO. With all of the deals that we do, I help negotiate the exits, whether they’re mergers or IPOs.

From an operations standpoint, when I was a software engineer, I worked for Anderson Consulting, which is now Accenture. They bought an 11 person software company down in Dallas, Texas, and they sent me down there to work with them. I got the startup bug back then because I was the “dude” running the 11 person shop and we built that up to several hundred people in about 6 months. From an operational standpoint, I like being able to help companies scale quickly.

What sparked your interest in the venture industry?

Working with small companies. While I’ve been successful working for large organizations, it’s not where I feel most comfortable. I feel more comfortable in a small company, whether it be the Foundry Group, which is the 11 of us, or whether it’s working for small startup companies, it’s what feels right to me.

You said that the Foundry Group is a $225 million fund. Are you still seeking out additional capital?

Nope.  We went out to raise $175 million and we voluntarily had to cap the fundraising at $225 million. If we had any more money than that, I don’t know if we’d be able to deploy it correctly. So no, we’re done. Fund is closed. We can spend the next 3 to 5 years investing in new companies with that before even thinking about raising another fund.

Why did you decide to headquarter in Boulder? As a tech VC, why not the Silicon Valley?

I was in the Silicon Valley for 10 years. My partner Ryan McIntyre was there for, I think, 18. I think that venture capital, at a minimum, is a national practice and in some ways that people practice, it’s an international practice. I don’t think that you can make a career by solely investing in the backyard of the Silicon Valley. While there’s a ton of companies, there’s also a ton of VCs.

If you look at the five of us and our track record, about a third of our deals have been in California, a third of our deals have been in Colorado and a third of our deals have been national. Boulder was a really nice place to set up shop to be able to get anywhere in the Country pretty quickly.
 
In what ways are you and Foundry Group unique in the industry?

Well, I think, one, location. There are not too many people with $225 million early stage venture funds in Boulder. I think we’re unique in the industry in so far as we’re one of the only first-time funds that I’ve ever heard of that has a cohesive team. Most first time funds have 2 to 5 to 7 partners coming together for the first time. We’ve all worked together for 7 years and we’ve got a demonstrative track record.

Secondly, instead of looking at the world in sectors, like semiconductors, medical devices, storage, B2C and SaaS, the group of us has always looked at themes.  We call ourselves “thematic investors.”  Historical themes include things like email or RSS. New themes could be implicit web or human computer interaction.  We like to engulf ourselves into a particular theme and learn everything about it, regardless of where it might fit into a traditional sector analysis.  If it works in the RSS or implicit web theme, we’ll invest in any sector underneath that theme.

There are a lot of great ideas out there. How do you filter through and find the companies you want to invest in?

Obviously you want a strong management team and you want it in an area that you think is going to be a big market. Those are the answers that you’ll get from any venture capitalist.

The first thing for me personally is, “does the idea strike me somehow.” Like “wow, this is really cool” or “wow, nobody has ever thought of that.” There has to be some sort of “wow” factor.

The second part is when you start talking to the management team. People discount the importance of how much the management team is worth. I’ve never seen anybody make money with a poor management team.

You also need to like the management team. You’re going to be spending a lot of time with these people, for years and years to come. Once you invest, you’re “stuck”, both positively and negatively, with the investment. You don’t get to get out. If the management team seems great and they seem like they’re people you’re going to want to hang out with and work with, that is important.

I think once you get past there, you start to deep dive, do the diligence, see what else has been funded and really do the analytical part of the analysis. If that lines up, then that’s when you seriously start thinking about making an investment.

Is there a typical size for the investments you’ll make or is there a cap on the amount of money you’ll invest?

No, there’s not. We’ll write checks as small as a couple hundred thousand bucks. We’ll do true seed deals. And for first round financings, we’ll go as high as $8 or $10 million comfortably and then still have money to reserve for later on.

When you’re looking at these businesses, are there any business models that are more popular than others to fund?

Not for us. There’s certainly a lot of that going on. There are venture funds that only invest in SaaS models, for instance, we are not worried about sectors and we’re not worried about business models. We analyze themes. And if it fits in our investment theme, then we’re going to look at it seriously.

You’re always talking with entrepreneurs. Are there any common characteristics that you find among the successful entrepreneurs that make them different from the others?

There are a lot of things that make a successful entrepreneur. Obviously intellect, drive, passion and an ability to take risks are all up there. I think the most successful entrepreneurs I’ve seen have 2 qualities that are always there. One is that they know their company and they know their market better than anyone else on the planet. If I’m in a board meeting and I even think I know the company or the market better than the management team, that’s a problem. These people should be smarter than me in all of that. There are some people who know everything so cold, its awe inspiring.

I think the second thing that is really important is that the entrepreneurs are willing to adapt and be self-aware. I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs get stuck. They’ve been successful before doing something and they think it’s going to work again. There is no playbook on how to make a successful startup. And if you think there is, I think that’s a fallacy. You’ve got to be willing to adapt. You’ve got to be willing to grow. Every organization is different. The cultures are different. The challenges are different. And those entrepreneurs who are able to grow and sit back and say, “this is what I do well and this is what I don’t do well” and fix those situations and grow along with the company and scale, those are the ones who are really going to stand out.

What strategies do you use that help you be successful in business?

My number one goal in this business is to be open and transparent. I’m not going to claim I’m always right and I’m not going to claim that I’m the smartest guy in the room. I try to be a very transparent person so that whomever I meet knows that what I say is what I feel and has no problem coming up to me and striking up a conversation. I want my door to always be open to anybody who wants to come. I think that openness, gives entrepreneurs and other people who we work with a great deal of comfort that I’m a trustworthy guy and that I’m ethical. Unfortunately in this business, there’s a lot of reputation for people not being that way. If there’s one thing that I focus manically about, it’s that…always trying to be completely straight and open.

Do you see any trends emerging in your industry?

There are some trends where some valuations for early stage companies have been getting really blown out of proportion. They may prove to be correct or they may prove to be another one of these situations where they find trouble down the road getting funding later on. If you get too high of a valuation up front, it may be hard to get follow-on financing at a valuation that makes sense.

I think that a big macro trend which has been happening over the past 4 or 5 years is the equality of knowledge in the field. A little as 5 years ago, I think that there was a lot more cloak and dagger, black-ops, and magic, behind doing these types of deals. There was a lot of disinformation. How does this get done and why are VCs doing this?

I think a lot of VCs being out there and blogging, speaking on panels and the entire user generated content ecosystem has really collapsed the dis-information gap and to where it’s cheaper for people to get deals done because the lawyers can’t play games and the entrepreneurs and the VCs are seeing more eye-to-eye. It doesn’t mean there are any less disagreements or hard times, but what I think it does mean is that there is a lot less BS being played because of inequality of knowledge.

Do you think that the downturn in the economy will have any effect on your business?

Well, it depends. It depends if the economy gets as bad as some people say it is going to and then for how long.

The economy in the early 2000s did affect our business because there was no market for IPOs or mergers.

Right now, if you look at what is driving the economy down, and I’m no macro economist, its energy prices and debt. If debt puts a squeeze on too many people so the consumers stop spending and the advertisers stop advertising, then some of our business models, which are based on advertising, don’t have the advertising dollars, then yes that will effect us. But at the moment, I’m not worried about any of that. Ask me again in a year and I may have a better answer.

What would you consider to be the most successful deal that you have done and what would you consider to be the coolest?

They are probably the one that the same. I think Stratify (http://www.stratify.com) would be my favorite deal.

What is Stratify?

Stratify is a company that doesn’t sound as sexy as it is, but one I find pretty sexy. They basically developed technology to read any document in any format in the world and take unstructured data and put it in structured format. They can read anything that you can come up with, whether it’s a CAD drawing to a Microsoft Word document to a webpage to an email. They can ready everything in any language and at the end of the day, they will automatically name folders saying, “here’s all of your accounting documents, here’s all of your stock purchase agreements, here’s all your CAD drawings, here’s all of your junk emails, here’s all of your golf outing jokes with your friends”.

The original idea was similar to a  “super Google desktop on steroids” back in 2000. The technology could be used to categorize the Web for a personal experience, or used on an enterprise level.  For me, I’ve worked at several larger professional services organizations, law firms and then Anderson Consulting. One of the problems that we always had was that we knew there was all of this massive information being created, intellectual property, but nobody knew how to access where it was. So the idea is that you could even use this within the enterprise and say, “Gosh, I wonder if somebody knew something about X”. It actually understands what the documents say. It’s not doing it based on linguistics. It’s doing this based on statistics. I think that technology is cool.

In 2003,for many companies, enterprise sales were challenging.  One of the jokes at the time was that the only people making any money in 2003 were the lawyers and the accountants. We all kind of looked at each other and said, “wait a minute.” Within a year and a half the Company became the leading software solution for electronic discovery, for all lawyers.

The CEO was a first time CEO. He was the original CTO of the Company who became a CEO. He built a wonderful team and scaled beyond anybody’s expectations. He was a pleasure to work with, too.  We recently sold the Company and are very happy with the outcome. 

It’s very satisfying in that we did the deal back in 2000. There were tough times for many startups and the  Company had to reposition its business plan. I remember sitting with the engineers, late at night, on the whiteboard doing screen mockups of what it would look like, seeing those mockups come to life and then seeing lawyers say, “I want that product.” Having been there with them through good times and bad, to them  becoming one of the most successful companies that we’ve ever invested in – that’s pretty much the coolest and most successful company that I’ve ever been involved in.

What type of advice could you offer those readers of this blog who are interested in approaching VCs for funding?

In general, it’s always better to get an intro from somebody who knows a VC than going straight to the VC. Given the amount of plans that VCs get, it’s always nice to be recommended by somebody. In our case, that’s not necessary. My email is on the internet. Anyone can go on the internet, find my email and email me.

The advice I would give is that you’re going to get a few minutes of somebody’s time, so you’ve got to really know your business, be concise, efficient and clear enough to be able to explain why its compelling in a short period of time, whether that’s in an executive summary or a phone call.

Also, have realistic goals.  I can’t tell you how many business plans I see that have $100 million in revenues in year three. I know that’s not ever going to happen. Have realistic goals, know your industry and know your competitors. I think that’s another place where I see a lot of weakness in is when I speak to people and say, “who else is out there doing it” and they say, “I don’t know”. That’s probably not a good answer. There is always somebody doing something similar.

Do you even look at the financials?

Oh yeah. When I first get an executive summary, I definitely look at the financials. The one thing that I’ve learned is that all projections are wrong – sometimes they are overly conservative and sometimes they are overly optimistic.  The first pass is definitely to see how realistic they numbers are. If that test is passed, then I really start to dive in. 

So people shouldn’t include financial statements in their business plans that show $100 million in revenues after year two?

Probably not, unless they can back it up. If they can back it up, then bring it on. My bias will be that it is an impossible business plan and impossible to ramp up.

Jason, thanks for spending time with me and for allowing me to interview you.

What could be better than having an ice-cold Bud Light? How about working for the company that brews it?

That’s why I invited Francine Katz, one of the top decision makers at Anheuser-Busch and one of the most influential trend setters in the industry, to be interviewed for The Creative Connector.

Here are some interesting things you’ll learn while reading this interview:

• Why the message is most important in communicating with consumers
• The top 3 characteristics that will help make you successful in any business
• How Anheuser-Busch is helping American adults fall back in love with beer

And just a few fun facts that I learned along the way:

• Francine, along with the other top executives at Anheuser-Busch, has a tap installed at her house with kegs full of Anheuser-Busch beer delivered upon request
• Anheuser-Busch is celebrating the centennial year of its corporate library. This library houses the largest collection of books and literature on the brewing industry and it’s located on Anheuser-Busch’s campus in St. Louis
• In addition to making beer, Anheuser-Busch makes many of the aluminum soft drink cans for Pepsi

The Interview

So what exactly do you do?

My title is Vice President of Communications and Consumer Affairs. My groups are responsible for the company’s brand marketing public relations, employee communications, communications for investor relations, government affairs and legal communications, as well as business communications. We also produce the company’s annual report, environmental report, and starting next year, a report on the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.

The Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, group is also in my portfolio. It consists of the company’s alcohol awareness and education programs, environmental outreach and all of the things we do in the community as a good corporate citizen.

One of the tenants of Anheuser-Busch is giving back to the communities where we live and do business. I also oversee the African American, Latino and Asian outreach efforts, which consists of programs and support designed to demonstrate Anheuser-Busch’s commitment to each of those communities.

Smaller groups that I oversee are corporate research, the corporate library, and the corporate archives. We have full time archivists who are responsible for being stewards of the company’s history and all of the artifacts and information regarding our corporate history. Whenever someone wants to do an in-depth look at Anheuser-Busch or the brewing industry, we are a primary source of that kind of information.

Personally, I sit on what’s called the Strategy Committee. It’s the top executives of the company, responsible for overseeing all of the business units. We meet regularly to discuss, formulate and strategize the company’s plans for the future.

I am also a spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch. In that capacity, I have been interviewed by virtually every news media outlet out there, from the Midland-Odessa Evening News to 60 Minutes. I’ve been interviewed by Geraldo Rivera, Katie Couric, A&E, the History Channel and Dateline. That’s a really fun part of my job.

How did you get started in the industry?

I’m an attorney. While I was working for Armstrong Teasdale in St. Louis, I was asked to come down and take over the portfolio of one of Anheuser-Busch’s marketing and distribution lawyers—the woman who is now the company’s general counsel. In essence, I was acting as a rental lawyer. A couple months into that assignment, I was made an offer to join Anheuser-Busch. I loved Armstrong Teasdale, but as a corporate lawyer, it was much more interesting to be a part of the business side of the equation. I was later asked to join a new group being formed called Consumer Awareness and Education, which was an opportunity for me to move into a management position as the director of that group. I then became vice president of the entire portfolio.

Did you have any previous experience in media or public relations?

No, but the people in our communications group that I oversee have extensive backgrounds in PR. I learned on the job, although my legal training really does help me with developing convincing positions and structured communications. Even as a lawyer, good communication is key.

What are the greatest challenges that you face in your role at Anheuser-Busch?

I deal with any kind of issue that the company faces, including external criticism, shareholder activism or government scrutiny. That’s part of what I find so exciting about my job. It generally involves, not only making sure that we have formulated our best argument in response to a challenge, but finding a common ground, working with groups, bringing people together and looking for resolutions that are win-wins.

When communicating with consumers, what do you find to be most important, the message or the channel?

It would be hard for me to pick between the message and the channel because you need both, but if I had to pick, I would say the message. One of the arts of communication is being able to take an abstract principle and translate it into something that is understandable and digestible. Sometimes this involves using words, graphics, and sometimes this involves holding up something when you’re on TV to visually demonstrate what you are talking about. Once you have developed the message, then getting that message out is critical. Otherwise, if you don’t communicate, while you may feel really good about crafting it, you haven’t accomplished anything.

When crafting your message and deciding on your communications channels, what strategies do you find to be most useful?

I rely heavily on research as a tool to help define messages and hone strategy. Let me give you an example. We wanted to create a program to discourage parents from hosting teen parties, which is a very prevalent. Parents either look the other way or condone it. So we convened groups of parents and talked to them about the issue. One of the things that we learned from talking with parents is that they were very responsive to a message about not hosting teen parties, but they were very careful about telling us not to take it any further than that, and that Anheuser-Busch should not be telling parents what they should do with their own children in their own homes. That was an instance where research helped us determine what the most effective message was.

How has technology influenced the way you communicate with employees and consumers?

Obviously, technology has definitely changed the way that communications are conducted. When I came here, technology consisted of a Wang system that allowed us to send emails to each other within the company. It’s an understatement to say that the world has changed, but we have changed with it. For instance, we now oversee numerous websites that get information out to people. My group is also responsible for the Anheuser-Busch homepage for our employees. Communicating with employees is just as critical to a company’s success as external communications. It is important for us to let employees know what is going on. We make sure that when there is news about the company, they hear it from us first.

The digital marketing world is something we’re actively involved in. Anheuser-Busch is one of the largest advertisers in the country. Being such a powerful media force, we have all of the tools at our fingertips to deliver messages. I would say that we take full advantage of them.

If you could pick 3 characteristics that you believe are most important in business, what would you tell the readers of this blog?

In terms of leadership, the most important thing you can do as a leader is to choose the right people for the right job, and then give them the tools they need to do the job. That sounds easy, but it’s definitely a talent to be able to identify who is best at doing what, put those people in those positions and then motivate them and provide them with the resources to do their jobs to the fullest.

In terms of work ethic, what I look for in people is whether they are able to take nothing and make something of it. When you’re talking about creating a communications plan, you start with nothing or maybe a concept or a business proposition, and then you have to translate that nothing into something. Being able to do that is critically important.

Someone once described that kind of person to me as a “closer,” somebody who can take something from start to finish and be relied upon to get the job done and get the job done well. That’s something that is sometimes missing. Lots of people have great ideas, but they’re not able to implement them.

Being creative and being smart are table stakes at Anheuser-Busch. Everybody’s creative. Everybody’s smart. It’s the people that can harness that creativity and intellect and can turn it into something who are successful. Not just here, but everywhere.

The third thing that I think it paramount, both in your career and in your life, is adhering to a code of ethics. Anheuser-Busch, and I personally, will only have as much credibility as we demonstrate. It is critically important for a publicly held company to be seen as transparent, honest, credible and also ethical. Especially when you make a product that is illegal for a portion of the population. We have always done the right thing. When you do the right thing and when you are honest about your position on an issue, I think you gain the public’s trust.

What is your favorite Anheuser-Busch product?

That’s like asking me to pick my favorite child, I can’t do that, but I can tell you what’s on tap at my house right now…Bud Select. I like the fact that it has a full, rich flavor and not too many calories.

Do your children know that you equate them to beer?

My poor children have been used as examples in so many interviews. When it comes to the underage drinking front, one of the things that I have always said is that I do work for a beer company, but I’m also a mom and I’m out there dealing with these issues like every other mom. All four kids have been mentioned in interviews and they always cringe because I use them as examples of good behavior, most of the time, and sometimes not.

What do you see for the future of the beer industry?

Under the direction of our Executive Vice President of Global Industry and Creative Development, Bob Lachky, we created a campaign called “Here’s to Beer”. The reason we did it was because beer was taking a backseat in terms of its sophistication and trendiness to hard liquor and to wine.

The company formed this external image campaign, which is really a consortium of brewers at every level of the business, from the smallest craft brewer to our competitors in the US and around the world. We said there are lots of things that we cannot agree on and lots of areas where we compete with each other, but there’s one area where we ought to work together and that’s in promoting beer and everything that is wonderful about beer. All of the interesting stories about the history of beer, all of the different types and styles of beer, all of the friendships and social occasions that call for beer, where no other alcohol beverage will do.

What do I see as the future, as something that will be important to our industry? It is promoting the uniqueness of beer and making American adults fall back in love with beer. Some of that has already been achieved and I give Bob and his team credit for that.

How is what you do unique?

In terms of the group that I oversee at Anheuser-Busch and what we do, we are very unique in the industry. I don’t think that many companies dedicate the resources and personnel to have this type of infrastructure within their companies. A lot of companies hire PR agencies or advisors, but we have dedicated teams within the company that do these types of things. That makes us that much smarter and that much stronger. We don’t have to rely on educating third parties on our business and then asking their advice. We have people who know our business, who are involved in the day to day aspects, and they’re the ones that are giving the company advice on communications. We are unique in the way that we approach communications and corporate responsibility.

Just to give you an example, on the alcohol awareness effort, we’ve invested more than $675 million dollars in these initiatives, so its not just a PR effort, it’s run by a group of more than 20 people and then we draw on the wholesalers that Anheuser-Busch has in every market across the country to bring these efforts to the local level. They are required to spend a penny for every case of beer they sell towards these programs that promote responsible drinking and fight abuse.

What’s the coolest thing about working at Anheuser-Busch?

I work for a company that is associated with all different types of fun activities, whether its sports or entertainment. We sponsor concerts, golf tournaments, football games and baseball games. One of the perks is that it’s not usually hard to get tickets to those types of events.

When I was offered a job here, the General Counsel said to me, “I’m not sure you’re going to want to leave your law firm because I know you’re going to be eligible for partner, but we’d like you to consider coming to Anheuser-Busch.” I thought to myself, “Let’s see, I can go back to the law firm, but here I’ve gotten to go to a Rolling Stones concert, gotten to fly on the company jet, and I’m getting free beer…”

Wow, those are great perks…

Yes, but I think what makes Anheuser-Busch such a great place to work are the people. Anheuser-Busch is a company that attracts a certain breed of people who work hard and know how to have fun. It’s what makes us successful.

Anything else you’d like to say that we haven’t already covered?

David, you are my first to interview me for a blog! I enjoyed it – thanks.

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Anheuser-Busch Links:

Anheuser-Busch
Here’s To Beer
Alcohol Awareness Research Library
Anheuser-Busch’s Programs to Prevent Alcohol Abuse and Drunk Driving
College Talk Online
Family Talk Online
Prevent Don’t Provide
Designated Driver
African American Bud
LatinoBud.com
Who’s Your Bud

I’m pleased to announce that starting on Monday, December 3rd, I will be adding a new series to the Blog called “Visionaries”. I will be featuring interviews and profiles with people who create and lead trends in business, entrepreneurship and marketing. If you have an interesting background that would apply to this theme and would like to share you story and strategies for success, let me know.

The first few profiles will include one of the top technology venture capitalists in the country, an executive decision maker and trendsetter at the largest beer company, Anheuser-Busch, and several entrepreneurs who are creating new technologies that will shape the future of how you do business…

If you would like to receive these profiles automatically, I would highly suggest that you subscribe to my blog. Here’s a link to my RSS feed or enter your email address on the left side of the homepage to receive updates directly in your inbox.