Southern Tier Brewing Company announced today that it has hired Brendan Smith as Vice President of Sales & Marketing, effective immediately. Brendan most recently served as Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer of Smithfield Foods, a $13 billion global food company. Previously, he enjoyed a successful 17 year career in sales and marketing at Anheuser-Busch, ultimately serving as Senior Sales Director for the states of North and South Carolina. Brendan will be supported by a substantial number of new field sales reps, area managers, and chain account managers to deepen Southern Tier’s connection to its distributors and retailer accounts.
Following on the hire of John Coleman as CEO in September, Southern Tier is committed to building out a high performing team of beer industry veterans. According to John “Southern Tier is widely acknowledged to be among the top craft brewers, but the dynamics of the beer industry are becoming more demanding. It’s not enough to make great beer, you have to be able to execute every day to earn the trust and confidence of your wholesale and retail partners. Clearly conveying our brand’s reason to exist and then consistently delivering on our promises in the trade is critical to achieving our lofty ambitions for Southern Tier. I’ve known Brendan for 15 years and am confident that he’s the perfect leader for this effort. He is dogged, creative, passionate, and fully committed to the values of Southern Tier and the broader craft community.”
At Anheuser-Busch, Brendan started out as an entry-level route sales rep before working his way up to Senior Director of Marketing, with responsibility for all Budweiser brand family marketing initiatives in the U.S. He followed that by leading sales and marketing efforts within the North and South Carolina markets as Senior Sales Director. After 17 years, Brendan left Anheuser-Busch to serve as Chief Marketing Officer of Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer and a leader in numerous packaged meat categories. While there, he led and directed all domestic marketing, R&D and innovation initiatives.
According to Brendan, “I have so much respect for what founders Phin and Sara DeMink have created at Southern Tier and feel blessed to be part of their brewery. I’m also thrilled to be working again with John Coleman, one of the truly great leaders within the beer industry. I’m looking forward to joining the team and helping bring our great beers to market.”
0 comments (click to read or post):
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment...I do moderate each comment so it may not appear immediately...and please be nice! You can also comment using Disqus (below) or even comment directly on Facebook (bottom).