We take a look at some of the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
We take a look at some of the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
The long-standing head of Messe Düsseldorf's international contract business/Official Participations - Peter Schmitz - is to become the new Director of ProWein.
The international trade fair for wines and spirits had been under the provisional management of Michael Degen, Executive Director and Member of the Board of Management of Messe Düsseldorf, for the last nine months.
As of 1 February 2023, Peter Schmitz will take over the function of Director and will thus be responsible for the entire, worldwide ProWein portfolio. In this position, Peter Schmitz will report to Michael Degen, whose area of responsibility includes Wine & Spirits as well as a number of other international trade fairs in the fields of Health & Medical Technologies, Caravanning & Outdoor and Beauty & Rehacare.
Peter Schmitz has been responsible for Messe Düsseldorf's contract business for public clients as well as for the participation in trade fairs abroad for more than 20 years.
The flagship event, ProWein in Düsseldorf (next edition March 19-21) has built up numerous international satellite events: ProWine Shanghai, ProWine Singapore, ProWine Hong Kong, ProWine Mumbai, ProWine Sao Paulo and most recently ProWine Tokyo.
The Brewers Association has announced five candidates elected to the Brewers Association Board of Directors.
Packaging Breweries:
- Jason Perkins, Allagash Brewing Co. (Maine)
- Mitch Steele, New Realm Brewing Co. (Ga.)
Taproom Breweries:
- Melissa Romano, Lake Anne Brew House (Va.)
Pub Breweries:
- Kris Spaulding, Brewery Vivant (Mich.)
- Jason Lavery, Lavery Brewing Co. (Pa.)
The five members will serve three-year terms starting in February 2023.
WSET (the Wine & Spirit Education Trust) has announced that Kirsten Grant Meikle is to join its Board of Trustees, replacing Allen Gibbons as the Worshipful Company of Distillers’ representative.
Gibbons is stepping down this month, having served as a WSET trustee for four years.
Kirsten Grant Meikle has spent more than 20 years in the wine and spirits business. After seven years at Matthew Clark where she began in sales and ended up as Wine Range Controller, she joined William Grant & Sons UK in 2011 as Head of On Premise Strategy, later becoming Director of Prestige. She then moved to the company’s US operation as Commercial Strategy Director and, subsequently, the Regional Manager for the State of Illinois.
The wine and spirits expert is now back in the UK and working for the company in the Procurement team. She is a great champion of women in the spirits industry and, in particular, has made a ‘huge impact’ in helping to shift the perception that whisky is a man’s drink. She holds the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines & Spirits.
WSET’s Board of Trustees is chaired by Simon McMurtrie. The other members are Miles Beale, Lulie Halstead, Dan Jago, Jo Locke MW, Jo Thornton and Sukhinder Singh.
Drinks design agency Denomination has made three key leadership appointments across the US, UK and Australian offices: boosting the agency’s capacity at a global scale.
Butler Looney (left) has been appointed as Executive Creative Director to Denomination’s US office. Previously he was VP, Creative Director at Headspace Health and prior to this, held the same role at Ginger, an on-demand mental healthcare company that then merged with Headspace. Throughout his career, at agencies such as Turner Duckworth and Sterling, he has worked with brands such as Coca-Cola, Hershey, and Fitbit.
Simon Gawn (middle), previously National General Manager at McCann, has been appointed Managing Director to Denomination’s Australian office. He also spent 10 years at Ogilvy in New York, London and Sydney and has built brands and campaigns for IBM, Coca Cola, Mastercard, Philips, Microsoft, eBay, and Amex.
Jonny Kearns (right), previously Associate Creative Director at Marks, has been appointed Creative Director to Denomination’s UK office. Kearns is an identity and packaging Creative Director, who has worked at several top design agencies, including Boundless, Identica, Bloom and his own agency, Carrousel. In 2016, he won a Pentaward for the “best 10 designs in 10 years” for Johnnie Walker Black Label Limited Edition for Russia.
US wine subscription service Bright Cellars has appointed Catherine Fallis as its first master sommelier.
Fallis brings over 25 years of experience from nearly every facet of wine, spanning sommelier to salesperson, supplier and distributor manager, author, speaker, critic, judge and advocate. Most recently, she launched Planet Grape Wine Review, America's first female-led wine review platform, aiming to make wine more approachable and accessible.
Bright Cellars prides itself on its ‘down-to-earth approach’ to wine culture, for example with a two-minute, seven-question ‘non-wine’ onboarding quiz for new members to match the right wines to individual tastes.
Fallis will help spearhead education and selection efforts for Bright Cellars, which blends and bottles its own wines from grapes sourced from the world's top growing regions.
She will work closely with the brand's executive and education teams to develop content that helps subscribers better know its more than 100 wine brands and 750 wine labels – and the world of wine in general – from tasting videos to virtual panel events and direct interaction with members.