Molson Coors names new head of US sales (and waves goodbye to 40-year ‘industry legend’)
Molson Coors has named its new president of US sales as Chief Customer Officer and beer industry veteran Brian Feiro, who will take on the role on December 31. Feiro replaces Kevin Doyle, an ‘industry legend’ who will retire after nearly 40 years with the company.
Feiro, a Duluth, Minn., native, started his career loading trucks for a Miller distributor in northern Minnesota. He joined Molson Coors in 2002 and began a methodical ascent through the company’s U.S. sales organization. He served in distributor management and sales operations roles, then as a director on the national accounts team, as a regional chain director and as a vice president of the company’s Central region before rising to chief customer officer in early 2021, where he has helped the Molson Coors off-premise chain team return to the No. 1 supplier position in the latest industry survey by Tamarron Consulting.
Feiro will lead Molson Coors’ largest sales team in what the company calls the ‘biggest and most important market at a crucial time in the company’s history and amid fundamental changes in the beverage industry’.
Kevin Doyle: A career of 'blockbuster achievements'
Kevin Doyle has held virtually every sales role with Miller Brewing Company, SAB Miller, MillerCoors and Molson Coors. He guided the launch of brands ranging from Miller Genuine Draft in 1986 to Simply Spiked Lemonade in June, and built the leading chain-selling team in the US, first for Miller and later for MillerCoors and Molson Coors.
“Doyle, 62, will retire leaving a storied legacy filled with a lifetime’s worth of blockbuster achievements during his 39-year tenure at the company. He established Molson Coors’ chain sales and on-premise sales organizations, pioneered its industry-leading category management and sales analytics programs and helped lead the integration of Miller and Coors upon the formation of the MillerCoors joint-venture in 2008,” notes the company.
“Hard-driving and ultra-competitive, the Miller High Life aficionado and consummate salesman maintained an outsize presence on the Molson Coors leadership team and among distributors, many of whom Doyle considers lifelong friends.”
Doyle, who cut his teeth in the business managing Fat Harry’s bar in New Orleans while in college and later won a merchandiser job in 1981 at Crescent Crown Distributing (at the time Miller Brewing-owned), “understands the business and the industry inside and out, has a photographic memory for numbers and a competitive spirit few can match,” Molson Coors CEO Hattersley said. Those traits led him to “a remarkable career that has earned him a lasting legacy in our industry.”
For all of his 'famous competitive fire', however, “Kevin has never forgotten where he came from, and he has always cared deeply about the people on his team. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Kevin over the past 20 years, it’s this: He’s a good man who has become a friend to countless people in our business and across our industry,” Hattersley said.
Doyle will remain with Molson Coors for the next five months to assist Feiro in the transition.
Feiro says his top priority is to strengthen Molson Coors’ relationship with its network: which includes driving engagement among its distributor partners as well as his sales team. He also wants to continue building the team’s culture, infuse more diverse talent into Molson Coors’ sales organization, help elevate the company’s performance in categories adjacent to beer and continue his work modernizing Molson Coors’ chain strategy.
