As Director of DSD Beverage Merchandising, Cassie leads a team of 25+ associates for The Kroger Co. She is responsible for merchandising for all shelf stable non-alcoholic Beverage for DSD & CSD. Cassie began her Kroger career in 2019 as the Merchandising Coordinator in Adult Beverage supporting the Beer commodities. She was promoted to Director of DSD Beverage in June of 2020. Prior to joining Kroger, Cassie spent eighteen months as a Change Leader for Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market. Before this time, Cassie spent fifteen years at Walmart covering different roles from Store Manager, Buyer and Regional Merchandise Director. Cassie graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a degree in Business Administion. Cassie currently lives in Kentucky with her partner, Henry, and their son and daughter.

As VP Emerging Brands for New Revenue Streams (NRS), Matt Hughes leads emerging brand commercial strategies across channels and routes to market, partners with NRS investment portfolio brands to accelerate growth and leads integration of investment brands upon acquisition. In addition, Matt is developing incremental growth platforms for The Coca-Cola Co. as a member of the NRS lead team. Matt was a founding member of Coke’s Venturing & Emerging Brands (VEB) in 2007 and has been in the beverage industry for over 30 years and launched three entrepreneurial beverage brands prior to joining The Coca-Cola Company. As the leader of VEB Matt led the transition of the business unit to New Revenue Streams and established the strategic relationship with Molson Coors for recently launched Topo Chico Hard Seltzer.

Ken Sadowsky is known by insiders in the beverage business as “the beverage whisperer” for having an incredible track record of investing in and advising many of the fastest-growing and most successful new beverages over the last 20 years, including Glaceau/VitaminWater, Vita Coco, Hint and LifeAID where he serves (ed) as a Director. He has also advised companies including Bai, Califia Farms, Recess, and Dyla Brands (makers of Stur and Forto). Ken is also the senior beverage advisor for Verlinvest (investment vehicle of Belgian InBev family) in the USA. He is also the executive director of NIDA, a group of independent beverage distributors in the Northeast part of the USA.

Dan has extensive global experience in general management, operations, and marketing. As the leader of new revenue streams, Dan will drive new business models and opportunities beginning with category expansion into alcohol and coffee, the integration of fast-growing premium brands including Topo Chico Mineral Water and BodyArmor, and the evolving consumer access through new dispensing platforms. Dan comes from Brian Smith’s Office of the COO where he developed new marketing models and the long-term transformation model resulting in the Enterprise-Wide Initiatives. Prior to this, he was the Senior Vice President and GM of the North America Sparkling Business Unit. Dan worked as the global CMO for the McDonald’s Global Division and was SVP, GM of McDonald’s USA business. He has had deep experience on M&A including the leadership of the Global Energy business culminating into equity investment with Monster Energy as well as the merger of IBP Beef and Tyson Foods to become the world’s largest protein company. Dan has held marketing and general management positions at Tyson, Bausch & Lomb, and Ray-Ban, and has led agency side strategic planning for brands in apparel, financial services, and fast consumer goods. In his spare time, Dan is a founding partner of Venture 53, a start-up venture capital fund and a specialty accelerator solely focused on the transportation trucking and logistics business. Dan has taught at several well-known universities including Wake Forest University and University of Georgia and was successful in his own entrepreneurial venture in creating developing and operating one of the largest and most successful live outdoor amphitheaters, The Arkansas Music Pavilion/The AMP, which was ultimately bought by the Walton Family Foundation/Walmart. He has 3 great kids (Meghan Kate, and Will), 2 OK dogs (Echo and Ridge) and saintly spouse (Amy).

Mike Schneider is a seasoned executive who lives at the collision of brand, experience and product. A long-time blogger and thought-leader, Schneider got his start drinking and evaluating craft beer and co-wrote Location Based Marketing for Dummies.

Paul Beaupre (Bo-Pray) is a 25+ year veteran of the beverage industry. He had a long, rewarding career with Coca-Cola and its VEB group working on brands like: Dasani, Monster Energy, illy RTD Coffee. In the last 6 years he has lead launch & growth phases with founders of brands such as: Tip Top Cocktails, Mocktail Club, Hella Cocktail Co, and most recently BIOLYTE. Through his consulting firm Bo Pray and GPG accelerator SKU, he fills operating, advisory, and mentoring roles with a focus on female and diverse founders.