People Moves: Athletic Greens Eyes Growth, Embraces Web3 as Kat Cole Joins C-Suite

Athletic Greens Moves to Scale, Embraces Web3 as Kat Cole Joins C-Suite

Direct-to-consumer wellness brand Athletic Greens announced this week it has named Kat Cole as president and Chief Operating Officer. Cole, who most recently held the same position at Focus Brands, will also join the company’s board of directors.

During her time with Focus, Cole oversaw the company’s on-premise brand portfolio – including Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, Moe’s, McAllister’s and Jamba – which combined have over 6,000 global locations. Cole left Focus last year, telling BevNET this week that she had intended to take “at least a year” off from fulltime work to take time for herself and focus on advisory work and angel investing, including board director roles for Milk Bar and pizza app Slice.

Cole became a formal advisor for Athletic Greens this spring after meeting founder and CEO Chris Ashenden. The brand, which makes a line of powdered health shakes, was founded in 2010 and until recently had primarily been a barebones operation. However, the company raised its first round of outside financing this summer – led by SC.Holdings – and has achieved a $100 million revenue run rate with sales approaching 200% year-over-year growth.

“I got to look under the hood, and I know this term gets overused, but I really got to see what a rocketship the company is,” Cole said. “[I saw] how strong the unit level economics are, how strong the business model is, and what the real growth looks like.”

In the dual president and COO role, Cole said she will oversee all aspects of the business and is focused on helping the brand to scale and grow its consumer base. Cole’s immediate goals include hiring new team members, broadening the brand’s marketing to appeal to more female and older consumers, and crafting retail partnerships as Athletic Greens aims to move outside of the ecommerce channel.

“Building the team and investing in talent to drive the growth the company’s capable of is the job always, it’s not even job one, it’s job nonstop,” she said.

While Athletic Greens’ consumer base has typically skewed male, recent recognition from health and wellness influencers has helped attract more women, who accounted for 45% of new consumers in 2021, Cole said. As well, she sees opportunities to market the brand to older Gen X and baby boomer shoppers by expanding the brand’s messaging to position it as a daily health product.

While the brand will not instantly make the leap into brick and mortar, Cole said she also sees opportunities to roll Athletic Greens out into “focused retail partnerships” in the fitness, hospitality and travel channels. Though the company may one day seek to build a wholesale business, she suggested that “when that happens it will not be done in a typical way.”

“[Retail is] just too much margin to give up,” she said. “So we will, much like the founder always has, approach brick and mortar retail with more of a partnership structure, as opposed to selling something in mass quantities at diminished margins that then has to be marked up in order to make everything work for all involved.”

Beyond traditional scaling strategies, Cole also intends to integrate Web3 opportunities into the business model, including opportunities with NFTs and blockchain technology. One aim will be to introduce Athletic Greens into the NFT sphere by forming partnerships with digital artists and identifying communities centered on nutrition and wellness. The company will also in the future seek to integrate blockchain for its supply management.

While many CPG brands dipping their toes into the NFT space have used the tokens as promotional tools, Cole sees potential for more practical uses, including special rewards programs tied to NFTs that may offer the owner free or discounted product, access to exclusive chat groups and potentially live in-person events that require a specific NFT for entry.

Though brands have traditionally found ways to offer those perks without the blockchain, Cole said the community element is the most important difference and ensuring that Athletic Greens is authentic and active in these groups is vital to its success.

“You can start to see how there are elements of this that aren’t new,” she said. “So it’s about being obsessed with the individuals, but then connecting them to something greater, which is community. The NFT piece is just a digital commemoration of the levels in the company. But it is so much more than a promo and a flyer.”

Jel-Sert Grows Sales Team New VP of National Accounts

Family-owned powder and drink mixes maker The Jel Sert Company is beefing up its sales team with the hiring of Kate Howard as VP of national accounts and the promotion of Joseph Bouma to the role of EVP of Sales.

Howard brings over 15 years of sales experience to the company, most recently serving as a national sales manager at Bush Brothers & Company where she oversaw Walmart, Kroger, SuperValue, Target and Sam’s Club over 11 years. According to Jel Sert, Howard will oversee sales planning and innovation, and work to expand strategic partnerships and strengthen customer relationships.

In an email, Bouma said Jel Sert is currently investing in its production facilities to grow its powdered soft drink and freezer pops businesses,

“In these last two years, The Jel Sert Company has seen a significant increase in consumption and new users,” Bouma wrote. “Also, in the previous two years, we’ve recognized the shift in when and where our consumers want to buy our products. Therefore, we will remain laser-focused on becoming a more digitally-driven sales company. With all of the focus mentioned above, we will continue to add expertise and promote talent to navigate the tremendous change and growth in the coming years.”

Icelandic Glacial Names Raymond Thu as CFO

Premium bottled water brand Icelandic Glacial has named beverage industry veteran Raymond Thu as its new Chief Financial Officer.

Thu brings over three decades of CPG experience to the position, having begun his career at PepsiCo in 1986. He later served as VP of finance at Nestle USA from 2003 to 2010 and later as VP of sales for Nestle Waters North America where he worked to grow the Arrowhead brand. Since 2014 he has advised startups and mid-size companies as the co-founder of Tempo Strategies Management Consulting.

“Ray comes to Icelandic Glacial with a wealth of experience in our space and has expertise with finance, operations and business development in some of the best-known food and beverage companies globally,” said Jón Ólafsson, chairman and co-founder of Icelandic Glacial, in a press release. “He has demonstrated the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial culture and we are thrilled to welcome him to our team.”

Whipstitch Capital Announces New Director Promotions

Massachusetts-based investment bank Whipstitch Capital announced this week it has promoted both Tim Sousa and Greg Ucich to the role of Director, and has named Brendan Camuso and Sarika Pokala as associates.

“Tim and Greg have worked with my partner and co-founder, Nick McCoy, and me for more than eight years each,” said Whipstitch managing director and co-founder Mike Burgmaier in a press release. “They have grown with us from the Analyst level and have created significant value for the firm. We are proud to recognize them with well-deserved promotions and look forward to their continued success and development at Whipstitch on behalf of our clients.”

Sousa joined Whipstitch in 2016 and has worked on numerous transactions, including deals involving GoodBelly, Uncle Matt’s Organics and Hungry Harvest. Ucich also joined in 2016 and worked on transactions involving Flying Embers, LesserEvil and Hope Foods. Camuso and Pokala each joined Whipstitch in 2019.