2019 Trends in CPG

Come hear about investors’ perspective on CPG trends in natural products industry. Learn what some of the highlights were from The Specialty Food Association Winter Fancy Food Show where 1,400+ exhibitors convened from around the globe to promote 80,000+ specialty foods & beverages.

Date/Time

Wednesday, February 6, 2019: 5:30pm-7:30pm

Location

 600 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94108

Registration

Members: $25.00; Non-Members: $35.00
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Guest Profiles

Karen Howland: Managing Director, CircleUp 

Karen is a Managing Director at CircleUp. CircleUp is an investment platform providing capital and resources to innovative, early-stage consumer brands. CircleUp is comprised of internally-managed funds, an investment marketplace and credit division, which are all powered by Helio, a proprietary machine learning platform that evaluates more than 1.2 million consumer and retail businesses to predict future business success.

Wayne Wu: Managing Director, VMG Partners 

Wayne Wu is a Managing Director and Partner at VMG. VMG works intimately with founders and leaders of branded consumer product companies, providing the resources and guidance needed to propel them to their next level of growth and value. Beyond capital, our value-added investment philosophy commits our deep experience, strategic guidance and passionate focus to help our partners accelerate growth, brand awareness and achieve their own definition of success. VMG has worked closely and successfully with brands such as Babyganics, Drunk Elephant, Humm Kombucha, Justin’s, KIND, Nature’s Bakery, Perfect Bar, Pirate’s Booty, Pretzel Crisps, Quest, Spindrift, Stone, SunBum, and Vega to name a few. The VMG team is excited to partner with the next generation of innovative, consumer product entrepreneurs, helping them to fully realize their founding vision to build iconic brands.

Mike Dovbish: Executive Director, NUTRITION CAPITAL NETWORK (Moderator)

Mike Dovbish is the Executive Director and one of the founding members of Nutrition Capital Network, an investor and partnering platform for growth companies in health and wellness. (Acquired by New Hope Network, part of Informa PLC in December 2016). Mike also provides strategic guidance to emerging sustainable health and wellness businesses and disruptive, consumer and ag tech companies assisting with strategy, capital raising, partnerships and business development.

Naturally Bay Area would like to extend a special thank you to our good friends at BPM for hosting tonight’s program.

BPM provides meaningful, comprehensive financial and business counsel. They are experts in accounting, tax, and finance, and its people are distinguished by their knowledge, discipline, and unremitting commitment to the success of clients.

Founded in 1986, BPM is one of the largest California-based accounting and consulting firms, ranking in the top 50 in the country. With six offices across the Bay Area, BPM serves emerging and mid-cap businesses as well as high-net-worth individuals in a broad range of industries, including financial services, technology, life science, manufacturing, food, wine and craft brewing, automotive, nonprofits, real estate and construction. The Firm’s International Tax Practice is one of the largest on the West Coast and its well-recognized SEC practice serves approximately 35 public reporting companies, mostly in the technology industry.

BPM delivers the resources, expertise, and global capability of a Big Four accounting firm together with the responsiveness and accessibility of a local partner. We are members of the Leading Edge Alliance, a far-reaching international association of independent firms across 90 countries. Our International Tax team is one of the largest on the West Coast, routinely dealing with client concerns around the globe.

More info at www.bpmcpa.com