Melissa Angle is the Vice President of Natural Category Merchandising and Supplier Relationship Management for United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI), a premier grocery wholesaler delivering a wide variety of fresh, branded, and owned brand products to more than 30,000 locations throughout North America, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, ecommerce providers, and food service customers. Melissa began her career at UNFI in 1998 as a Custom Flyer Coordinator in the Dayville, Conn. facility. She quickly moved into a Category Management role for Grocery. In 2001, Melissa joined BIN Sales & Marketing, a natural broker, where she served as Brand Manager and later Director of Marketing before returning to UNFI in 2006. Over the years, Melissa has held several key positions of increasing responsibility at UNFI, including National Director of Marketing – East and West, East Region Director of Supplier Relationship Management, National Sr. Director of Supplier Relationship Management, and Vice President of Supplier Relationship Management. She’s played a pivotal role during numerous mergers, acquisitions, and organizational transformations, including the formation of UNFI and integrations with Millbrook, Haddon House, Trudeau, Tony’s, and SUPERVALU. Outside of work, Melissa enjoys spending time with her two adult children, Ashleigh and RJ. She’s an avid pickleball player, a home project enthusiast with a passion for painting, and is currently diving back into sourdough baking.

Kim Route is a Category Manager at INFRA, where she curates strategic promotions and identifies emerging trends across snacks, candy, chocolate, and beverages. With experience spanning both conventional and natural grocery, she is passionate about helping independent retailers thrive and advancing a more sustainable food system. Outside of work, Kim enjoys time with her three dogs, trying new recipes, exploring local breweries, and serving on the Advisory Board for Minnesota State University’s Women in Leadership program.

Lou Grill leads Red Tree Beverages, the Coca-Cola Company’s U.S. subsidiary for alcohol ready-to-drink products, where she drives innovation, brand development, and operational excellence in a rapidly evolving segment. Lou is recognized for her strategic vision and cross-functional expertise, spanning finance, marketing, sales, commercialization, and people development. Her career includes general management of the Coca-Cola McDonald’s North America business, oversight of Natural Channel sales and strategy with retailers such as Whole Foods and Sprouts, and leadership in strategic partnerships with major entertainment and hospitality brands, including recognition as one of the Top 50 Women in Global Cinema by Celluloid Junkie.  Lou’s approach emphasizes the creation of mutual value from insight-based innovation driving through to commercial and marketplace impact. Lou began her career in finance at The Coca-Cola Company and previously held financial roles at Federal Express Corporation in market development and business planning. She is the executive sponsor of Women’s LINC, Coca-Cola’s Women’s Inclusion Network, and holds an MBA from the University of Georgia and a BA from Duke University.

Ken Sadowsky is an astute trend identifier and a 35-year veteran of the beverage industry. Ken’s career started as an operator in Auburn, MA at Atlas Distributing, a company founded by his grandfather. He was an early distributor of vitaminwater, among the first to distribute Snapple, Red Bull, and Monster. Later he joined the board of GLACEAU, the parent company of vitaminwater & smartwater. Today, Ken is the Senior Beverage Advisor for Verlinvest, the diversification vehicle of the Belgian InBev family with over €4.5 deployed across 25+ portfolio companies. Ken sits on the board of directors for Vita Coco (COCO), Icelandic Glacial Water , and LifeAID, and was previously an advisor for Bai and Essentia Water. Ken continues to advise and invest in new companies to this day.

Mike Schneider is a seasoned executive who lives at the collision of brand, experience and product. He has deep roots in branding, mobile, content and events. Prior to BevNET, Schneider lead major rebranding efforts for Skyhook and GasBuddy and was the CMO of Apptopia. He also spent over 8 years in big Boston ad agencies Hill, Holliday and allen and gerritsen leading content, digital innovation and analytics teams. A long-time blogger and thought-leader, Schneider got his start drinking and evaluating craft beer and co-wrote Location Based Marketing for Dummies.

As founder and CEO of BevNET, John Craven is a widely-recognized authority on the beverage industry and he is frequently cited in mainstream media. His vision shapes the editorial, publishing, and positioning of all of BevNET's properties, including BevNET.com, NOSH.com, BevNET Magazine, Brewbound.com and their associated conferences. John is a graduate of Boston College with a BS in Marketing and Computer Science.

Fred Hart is a brand consultant and creative director obsessed with building and studying CPG brands. Over the last decade, Fred's built a 30-person branding agency, transformed over 130 CPG brands, won 5 Design Effectiveness Awards, and has quenched the design thirst of beverage brands ranging from KOIA, Suja, Califia, Monster and more.