BevNET Live NYC 2026 Speakers

At BevNET Live Summer, Morrison Foerster's Chuck Cotter and Habitat Partner's Daniel Faierman discuss how to navigate the fundraising process.

At BevNET Live Summer, KarpReilly's Hank Spring explained the current landscape of beverage investment and how the PE firm strategizes its funding role.

At BevNET Live Summer, hemp beverage industry stakeholders discuss the category's present and future as a November ban looms ahead.

Walmart, Morrisons, and Asahi have joined the incredible lineup of retail and investment hosts taking 1:1 meetings at BevNET Live NYC 2026 on June 10 + 11. Walmart is the world’s largest grocery retailer, Morrisons is one of the largest supermarket chains in the U.K., and Asahi is one of the world’s leading beer, spirits, and soft drinks companies.

Raising capital has become more difficult across beverage and CPG. Investors are writing fewer checks, diligence timelines have lengthened, and brands are facing greater pressure to prove not just growth potential, but operational discipline and a clear path to profitability. At BevNET Live NYC 2026, taking place June 10 and 11 at New York’s Metropolitan Pavilion, founders will hear directly from investors, advisors and operators shaping today’s beverage finance environment — while also gaining access to private meetings through BevNET Live’s 1:1 networking program.

BevNET Live NYC 2026 attendees have the opportunity to request private, pre-scheduled, 10-minute 1:1 conversations with retail and investment leaders who understand the challenges of building and scaling beverage brands. Learn what retailers and investors are looking for as they’re scoping out new products for their shelves and portfolios.

BevNET Live will feature a discussion on the ways Walmart is trying to evolve the experience of entrepreneurial beverage brands in the world’s largest grocer. During the discussion, Dee Charlemagne, Walmart’s Senior Director of Emerging Brands, will be joined by Lesley Osorio, a senior beverage category merchant at Walmart, to outline the ways that entrepreneurial beverage brands can partner with and thrive in the Walmart system, as well as the expectations and challenges that can come with the retailer.

Is it the last call for intoxicating THC beverages, even if the industry is just taking off? At BevNET Live NYC 2026, category stakeholders will explain how they are preparing for the worst — while embracing the present — as they face down a November 13 deadline that could cripple their category.

As category definitions shift and consumers reconsider what they want to drink, when, and where, BevNET Live NYC 2026 on June 10 + 11 will feature a talk with one of the architects of that disruption when Athletic Brewing Co-Founder & CEO Bill Shufelt takes the stage.

It’s time to reveal the semifinalists for BevNET’s signature pitch competition, the New Beverage Showdown, taking place at BevNET Live NYC on June 10 + 11.

BevNET and :INCLUDED CPG are proud to share the three brands selected to attend BevNET Live NYC (June 10 + 11) through our :INCLUDED partnership. This year's participating :INCLUDED brands reflect a range of innovation, heritage, and purpose-driven entrepreneurship — spanning RTD cocktails rooted in Asian drinking culture, heritage-inspired Latin American beverages, and functional wellness drinks drawing from global traditions.

The preliminary agenda is officially live for BevNET Live NYC 2026! We’re heading back to the Metropolitan Pavilion on June 10-11 for two days of high-octane networking, strategic deep dives, and the best brand-building insights in the business.

Ben Weiss is back. After stops on television (Billion Dollar Idea) and the bookshelves (Basementality) the inspirational founder of Bai has returned to the beverage business with Crooked Soda, an idea based on his theory that a low-ABV fermented soda is the next big idea. Weiss isn’t just coming back to the beverage business, however – he’s also coming back to BevNET Live NYC 2026, where he’ll be sitting down for a conversation on entrepreneurship, brand building, investment, and the state of the industry.

At BevNET Live NYC 2026 (June 10-11 at the Metropolitan Pavilion), the exclusive 1:1 meeting program returns to bridge the gap between emerging brands and industry power players. In a landscape where retail cycles are tightening and capital is more selective, these structured sessions are designed to move beyond the hallway "elevator pitch" and into the actionable conversations that drive growth.

AI agents are already shopping for consumers on Amazon, Kroger, Instacart, Albertsons, and Walmart — and they make purchasing decisions without ever seeing your label, your story, or your packaging. At BevNET Live NYC on June 10 + 11, you'll learn how to win anyway.

Tomorrow, Friday April 24, is the last day to take advantage of early registration pricing for BevNET Live NYC, which takes place on June 10 + 11. Register now and save $100 before the deadline passes.

Early registration pricing for BevNET Live NYC 2026 expires in one week on Friday, April 24. The event takes place June 10–11 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. Register before the deadline to save $100 off standard pricing.

Adam Kost made a quick sale out of his RTD cocktail brand, taking it from its first appearance, in 2022, to a March exit to Sazerac. But Dirty Shirley almost didn’t make it to the store; its success ultimately depended on one key early pivot to allow the brand to break free of category boundaries and establish its own lane for growth.

From brain health to protein to probiotics, from energy to electrolytes to recovery stacks, as the beverage business continues to find growth in functional product types, retailers with a strong grounding in the supplement world are becoming increasingly important parts of the retail footprint for entrepreneurial brands. To help explain how founders can take advantage of this ongoing shift, BevNET Live Summer 2026 will feature a talk with Nicolletta Payne, the Senior Director of Merchandising for The Vitamin Shoppe, where she leads the On-the-Go and Protein categories. In this role, Payne is responsible for the company’s wide-ranging beverage assortment.

He’s been a founder, advisor, investor, and more, but for Tom First, the label that fits best is “Beverage Guy.” From helping launch the first great wave of New Age Beverages with Nantucket Nectars to ushering in the Modern Soda category at Culture Pop, First has always been at the forefront of beverage innovation, and he’ll share advice and experience from almost 40 years in the business when he speaks at BevNET Live NYC 2026.