OPEN HEART MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Drew is a purpose-driven leader with strategic communications, brand marketing, influencer marketing, and partnership experience with an emphasis on driving change through authentic storytelling that connects brands with consumers’ hearts and minds. He brings a unique perspective to marketing via his diverse career path including corporate, agency, nonprofit, and government organizations. Drew previously worked at Mezzetta where he lead communications and focused on planning and executing communications at the company, brand, and product levels via PR, partnerships, messaging, and storytelling. He also ran a consulting practice helping brands develop marketing and communications programs working with brands such as MasterClass, and e.l.f. Beauty. Previously, Drew led influencer marketing and communications at Clif Bar & Company, partnerships for Another Planet Entertainment, as well as entertainment marketing for The Clorox Company. He also spent 9 years in the agency world and helped start a nonprofit building playgrounds across the country. Drew serves on the Board of Directors of the Influencer Marketing Association, is a Council Member for Chico State’s Digital Marketing Program, and a Board Member of Town Business. Drew lives in Oakland, Calif. with his wife, 2 boys, and a rowdy dog named Rowdy. He continually thinks about sustainability, particularly around the evolution of food and how it affects our society. He’s also a member of a competitive BBQ team that’s won 3 world championships while living a plant-based lifestyle.

GUAYAKÍ

Ben Mand is CEO of Guayakí Yerba Mate. Prior to joining Guayakí, Ben was CEO of Harmless Harvest. At Harmless Harvest, Ben successfully transformed Harmless Harvest by tripling sales, radically streamlined the supply chain, and ultimately transformed an unprofitable business into a profitable and scalable company. Ben also led the successful acquisition of Harmless Harvest by Danone

Perhaps most importantly, Ben’s passion and commitment to the company’s mission-led objectives has resulted in assistance to >38k people in Thailand via Fair For Life initiatives, a transition to >50% regenerative organic farming, conversion to 100% rPET bottles, and bringing Harmless Harvest dramatically closer to its goal of 100% zero-waste.

Over the past 20 years, Ben has worked in various brand marketing and innovation roles at leading companies including General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, and Interbrand. He has made an impact as a change agent, driving improvements in health, sustainability, and social impact while delivering consistent sales and profit growth. Prior to joining Harmless Harvest, Ben oversaw all marketing, innovation and creative strategy for Plum Organics, a leading organic baby food brand. Under Ben’s tenure, the brand quickly accelerated from #3 to #1 in the category.

Ben is a seasoned speaker and has been featured at industry events including SXSW, Natural Products Expo and Advertising Week, speaking about everything from socially-minded business practices to marketing with empathy.

DRINK WHOLESOME

Tessa Schrupp is a native New Hampshirite, drawn to the West Coast by the allure of a vibrant food scene and a community of sustainability minded folks. She’s a liberal arts graduate of Colby College and has immersed herself in various facets of the Northern California food and beverage scene. After working a Sonoma wine harvest in the fall of 2020, Tessa moved full time to San Francisco and found employment at Postcard Communications with a focus on food and beverage clients. Past clients include CPG brands, restaurants and food-tech clients like Hog Island Oyster Co., the Omakase Restaurant Group, Umaro Foods, and Heidrun Meadery. In the spring and summer of 2023, Tessa worked as a contractor for Twrl Milk Tea, supporting account management and marketing. Most recently, she took a role as the Chief Marketing Officer at drink wholesome, a DTC, gut-friendly protein powder company. Tessa makes her home in the Presidio of San Francisco and brings a wide range of skills, event planning + brand collaborations among them, as well as enthusiasm for the natural foods industry, to the proverbial table. Her favorite foods include poke, chocolate souffle and raclette.

DAVE'S GOURMET

I am a trained coach and mentor at ICA and SKU, who founded and exited two food companies. Also, I currently help create educational content for the Specialty Food Association (where I am in their Hall of Fame) and Naturally Bay Area.

I founded, operated and successfully exited Dave’s Gourmet, a gourmet sauce company that won dozens of awards, gained enormous media coverage, and reached millions of consumers by selling to thousands of stores.

IMCD US FOOD INC.

Anna is a young face in the food industry. She graduated in 2020 from University of California, Davis with her Bachelor’s in Food Science and Technology with an Emphasis in Brewing Science. Starting her career in the flavor world, Anna specialized in sports nutrition. Out of the gate, she had the opportunity to help develop a variety of food and beverages working with some of the top leaders in the nutrition category. In addition to R&D, she developed and managed marketing campaigns for the products launched, growing an immense passion for evaluating industry and consumer trends. Currently, Anna works at IMCD US Foods, a Global Specialty Ingredient Supplier, as a Technical Account Manager providing ingredient solutions to manufacturers across the United States.

Anna resides in the East Bay with her fiancé and two cats. In her free time, she enjoys trialing new recipes for her cookbook, being active outside, and visiting all the amazing breweries in the Bay Area. She is an advocate for continued learning and will find herself reading about the food system, food processes, and what healthy means these days when she is not exploring parts of California she has not yet travelled.

Ground Control

Anna Dair is Head of Sales at Ground Control.

Previously, she was the Director of Business Development at Straus Family Creamery. The company’s mission is to help sustain family farms in Marin and Sonoma Counties by providing high quality, minimally processed organic dairy products, and to support family farming and revitalize rural communities everywhere through advocacy and education. Straus Family Creamery is committed to reaching carbon neutrality at the Straus Dairy Farm as well as all partner farms, by 2030.

Anna was responsible for leading Straus’ specialty and wholesale business, including commercial and non-commercial foodservice segments. She also heads the company’s consumer relations function.

Anna has worked in the food industry for close to 20 years, cultivating the value and benefits of sustainably raised and organic foods within the industry. Prior to joining Straus, she held sales leadership positions in the sustainable meat industry, including Niman Ranch, one of the first branded companies to ban the use of antibiotics and hormones in meat production.

TSUMO SNACKS

Caroline Yeh is a leader in the cannabis industry with extensive experience growing, scaling and commercializing innovative and emerging brand portfolios. She has overseen product development, operations, distribution, vendor relationships and marketing at several emerging companies both in and out of the regulated cannabis space.

Prior to founding award winning cannabis company, TSUMo Snacks, Caroline spent several years in management roles at top California cannabis brands Bloom Farms and Kiva Confections. Prior to entering the cannabis industry, Caroline spent 12 years working at start up food brands like Charles Chocolates, 479 Popcorn and Bandar Foods. She has served on boards for the Haas BC/EMBA Alumni Group and TSUMo Snacks. Caroline has an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A from the University of Pennsylvania.

PROPELLER INDUSTRIES

David Davick is a seasoned finance executive energized by helping early-stage businesses grow successfully and establish a more sophisticated approach to their finances. Since joining Propeller in 2016, Dave has served as CFO and/or transaction advisor for over 75 SaaS, CPG, Blockchain and Tech clients. Dave has 25 years of professional experience in Investment Banking, Corporate Finance, Investor Relations, and Public Accounting. In addition to his client work, Dave has leadership responsibilities for Propeller’s West Coast operations including its Business Development efforts and as Co-Lead of Propeller’s Transaction Advisory practice. Prior to joining Propeller, Dave spent more than a decade at Gap Inc. During his tenure at Gap, he led the global apparel company’s Investor Relations program that was ranked #1 in the industry in Institutional Investor magazine’s 2015 survey of Buy-Side investors. Dave also oversaw teams responsible for Financial Planning and Analysis, Real Estate finance and capital allocation. He also served as Gap brand’s financial lead on strategic initiatives including mobile platforms, marketing effectiveness and third-party partnerships. Dave began his career in Investment Banking, working in J.P. Morgan’s technology investment banking practice (then Hambrecht & Quist) and in audit and advisory services for PricewaterhouseCoopers. In those roles, he worked with organizations ranging from early-stage startups to large-cap public companies. Dave is on the advisory board of HomeRunIQ, a real estate and financial technology startup. He is a former board member of the San Francisco chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) and is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive). He earned a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Virginia. Outside of work, Dave and his wife, Natalya, report to their board of directors: their son, Felix, and daughter, Sasha.

Feastables

Mirek is the Sr. Director, International Sales at Feastables

Mirek has over 15 years of CPG experience, all focused in the natural food space. He has worked at small brands and has helped manage larger brands including Silk Plant Based Milk and Clif Bar. His passion is working with cross functional partners to identify consumer pain points. Mirek does this by solving those needs with consumer products, and bringing them to market through awareness, trial and purchase tactics. Outside of work, Mirek is a husband, father of 2 kids and an exercise enthusiast. He does triathlons, plays tennis and just generally loves being outside. Above all, Mirek focuses to source and eat healthy and sustainably for himself, his family and community to support all those passions.

Kuli Kuli Foods

Ericka has over 25 years of marketing, sales and general management experience in the consumer goods industry. She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from UCLA. Ericka’s career has included positions at large companies like Kraft and Nestle, but start-ups have been where she feels most at home for the last decade. At Kuli Kuli, Ericka’s focus is to drive profitable growth through innovation and strategic sales expansion. She is passionate about the Kuli Kuli mission to improve the lives of women across the globe with both business opportunities as well as healthy food options.

Hustle & Flower

Lynn Yako Graham  founded, scaled, and exited Beekeeper Marketing, an agency that helps natural and organic foods reach their potential on Amazon and other online retailer platforms. While at Beekeeper, she built a data analytics platform that ingested Amazon data and provided actionable insights for her clients and company. Prior to founding Beekeeper, she led brand marketing initiatives at natural foods companies, was a tech product manager, and was a strategy consultant.  Lynn has a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Haas Business School. She loves to play tennis, is a mom of boys, and loves hip hop.

Bank of America

Noel McArdell is a Senior Vice President and Market Manager for the Bay Area Business Banking team at Bank of America. In this capacity, Noel leads a team of financial specialists focused on delivering strategic advice with an emphasis on understanding a client’s industry and unique needs to ensure delivery of integrated financial solutions to help them attain their goals no matter how simple or complex.  Noel’s mission is to help companies and local communities thrive by making financial lives better.

Bringing over 20 years of banking experience, Noel joined Bank of America in 2007. Prior to her role as a Market Manager, she worked as a Middle Market Client Manager with the Greater Bay Area. Throughout her banking career, Noel has served many mid-sized companies throughout the Bay Area to support their commercial banking needs.

Originally from Marin County, Noel graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Economy of Industrial Societies from University of Berkeley. In addition to her degree from Berkeley, Noel also attended the University of California, Paris, where she conducted a n economic comparative study of France and the European Union while studying French. She now resides in the Marin area with her family.

Thrive Market

Thuy Nguyen is a Category Manager at Thrive Market, the health-first membership for conscious living, with a mission of making healthy living easy, affordable and accessible to all. At Thrive Market, Thuy is building out the assortment in Dairy, Deli and Refrigerated Grocery in preparation for their Fresh launch. Prior to Thrive Market, she was the Forager at Good Eggs and focused her time on finding unique and differentiated grocery products to bring onto the platform.

Thuy graduated summa cum laude from New York University and has over 12 years of experience working within all facets of the food industry and supply chain from farmer’s market manager, to wholesale coordinator, to small business owner. Throughout her years working within food companies like Hot Bread Kitchen, FarmBox, and Good Eggs, she found the most joy in discovering small emerging brands and helping them grow. When she isn’t focused on trying the latest innovative ready-to-drink beverage, she spends time baking and thinking about ways to increase representation and diversity in the food world.

Albertsons

Karen Ivanis-Rogers is the Senior Director of the Business Ventures program at Albertsons. She loves her work there identifying disruptive brands in the natural and emerging food and beverage space,  forming strategic partnerships to accelerate their growth and helping with their expansion and success. Prior to this job, Karen learned a ton working in CPG with Nestle, Johnson and Johnson, Clorox, Del Monte and Pharmavite in Sales, Strategy, Trade Marketing and Sales Planning roles. Karen lives in the Oakland Hills with her husband. In her free time, Karen loves anything in the kitchen from challenging baking projects, dinner parties new cocktail recipes to “putting up” jam and pickles.

Patagonia Provisions

Janal is the Head of Operations at Patagonia Provisions.

Prior to Patagonia Provisions, Janal was the VP of Operations at Guayaki. She is an experienced operations professional with a demonstrated history of working in the Food & Beverage industry. She is skilled in a broad spectrum of operations: Supply Chain Management, Cross Functional Team Leadership, Customer Service, and Project Management. Dedicated to building high performing teams and developing potential.

BRAUNHAGEY & BORDEN LLP

Dan Harris is a partner and head of the Corporate Practice Group at BraunHagey & Borden. Dan works closely with a wide range of innovative food system technology, CPG, software, hardware, and marketplace-based companies throughout their life cycles, advising on general corporate and commercial matters, equity and debt financings and mergers and acquisitions.  Dan’s core practice also involves representing a number of leading investors in the CPG and technology sectors.  Dan focuses on providing his clients commercially-grounded advice geared towards achieving their ultimate business goals and has represented companies and institutional investors in transactions totaling more than $3 billion over the past two years alone.

Dan lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family.  He enjoys exploring the world with his family and embraces his role as culinary guide on their trips.  When in the Bay Area, you may find Dan reliving his days of playing competitive sports, perusing local farmers’ markets or cooking with his daughter and son.  Dan is also a self-proclaimed oenophile.

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

Don is a strategic legal advisor and corporate counsel to emerging growth and middle-market Food & Beverage, Food Tech, and Ag Tech innovators and investors. His clients are based in the major U.S. food hubs, including the Bay Area, Boulder, Brooklyn, Austin and Los Angeles. His law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP (DWT), has one of the largest food & beverage practices in the United States, with over 40 attorneys serving food venture entrepreneurs, emerging brands, larger food companies, and the private equity firms that invest in them, at every level of the food chain from “Farm to Label”. Don is a Founding Faculty Member and member of the Advisory Board of the Food Business School at the Culinary Institute of America (Napa Valley). He currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the board of Directors of KCETLink TV, the public television station in LA, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Technion Society – San Francisco Chapter.

NUTRITION CAPITAL NETWORK

Mike serves as Executive Director of Nutrition Capital Network, providing strategic guidance and preparing participating companies for NCN Investor Conferences. Since NCN’s inception in 2007, Mike has worked with presenting companies on their business plans, pitch presentations and overall strategy to best position them for growth and investment. He also identifies and introduces potential investors and strategic partners to companies before, during and after the investor meetings. He has worked with entrepreneurs on their business strategy, capital raising, market opportunity assessment, value proposition and partnership development.

BPM

Ryan leads the consumer business group at BPM, a CPA & advisory firm based in San Francisco. He focuses on assurance work in the consumer space, and additionally provides technical accounting advisory services across industries. He also has expertise in SEC reporting, business combinations and similar complex accounting areas. Ryan has a personal interest in finance and helping clients achieve their business and financial reporting goals.

BAKER TILLY

Larisa is an audit partner with a focus in the manufacturing and distribution industry, including consumer products and food and beverage, as well as the technology industry. With over 20 years of experience, she has served middle-market privately held companies in a variety of industries. Her experience has been developed through her work domestically and internationally, with years of accounting experience in Israel.

Specific Experience:

• Areas of expertise include accounting and financial reporting, internal controls and fraud risk assessments, agreed-upon procedures, acquisitions and consolidations
• Assists clients with audits, reviews and accounting matters such as share-based payments, revenue recognition,variable considerations, software capitalization, equity transactions, debt restructuring and recapitalization
• Provides strategic business advice to management and technical accounting support to controllers and CFOs of privately held organizations
• Performs assurance engagements and coordinates additional services for her clients, including corporate and individual tax and business advisory
• Performs various business consulting engagements such as CFO advisory and mergers and acquisition projects
• Named one of the Most Influential Women in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times in 2017

ICA

Dianna Tremblay is the Chief Program Officer at ICA.  She is responsible for scaling the impact of the ICA’s programs and cultivating the support and capital ecosystem necessary for entrepreneurs to scale their businesses.  With expertise in program design and implementation,  small business support, accessing capital, and ecosystem building, Dianna strives to use these skills to increase equitable access to capital, coaching, and networks for entrepreneurs of color. Leading ICA’s program work, Dianna continues to explore, test, and build programs that ultimately prepare companies to become more resilient and investment-ready.

Prior to joining ICA, Dianna’s professional experience included sales, corporate relationship management, and business development roles in e-commerce and textbook publishing. Dianna received a MBA from the Lorry I. Lokey School of Business and Public Policy at Mills College and a Bachelor’s in English from California State University, East Bay.

THE BURBANK GROUP AT MORGAN STANLEY

Willis Davis is a partner at the Burbank Group at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, a team focused on financial planning and the management of permanent capital for the founders of food, beverage, and consumer products companies and private equity and investment banking professionals. Willis and the Burbank Group manage over $2.0 billion and have been recognized by the Financial Times as one of the Top 400 Advisory teams in the United States every year from 2013 to 2020. Willis holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation (CFA) and graduated summa cum laude from Hampden-Sydney College. Prior to joining the Burbank Group, Willis worked for Morgan Stanley in New York and Washington DC where he advised high net worth families and institutions.

Willis enjoys running, reading and fly fishing and is actively involved with the San Francisco Riptide youth lacrosse program. Originally from Virginia, Willis currently resides in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco.

ASPECT CONSUMER PARTNERS

Mattson

An experienced CPG Executive with a love for building brands and a drive to positively impact communities through natural & organic mission-driven businesses that inspire a shift forward in the food system and the world around us.

Pete currently sits as Chair of the Naturally Bay Area board and brings 20+ years of Consumer Packaged Goods experience to his role as Vice President of Innovation at Mattson. Having worked and learned at small and large companies like Kellogg’s, Foster Farms, Del Monte, Zola, Purely Righteous Brands, and the E. & J. Gallo Winery – he has led & developed iconic food & beverage brands including Kashi, Morningstar Farms, Gardenburger, Eggo, Foster Farms Fresh Chicken, and most recently his own husband-wife startup, Soñar! Organic Grain Free Tortilla Chips.

When Pete isn’t working or talking natural products, you can find him riding one of his bikes or teaming up with his wife to chase after their daughters on the soccer field or around the house in Oakland, CA.

NATUREX (Givaudan)

MOONSHOT

Jen Berliner is the General Manager of Moonshot, a new line of climate-friendly crackers made with regeneratively grown ingredients. She’s passionate about creating behavior change that makes people and the planet healthier.

Prior to Moonshot, Berliner was the CEO of Medlie, a leading fresh vegetable snacking platform incubated by Sonoma Brands. Berliner joined Medlie (formerly ZÜPA NOMA) in late 2016 from PepsiCo, bringing strong experience in growth strategy, insights-driven innovation, and channel and customer specific marketing programs. During her time at PepsiCo, she grew Mug Root Beer, Manzanita Sol, and SoBe; commercialized multiple “better for you” Foodservice innovations, and led Shopper Marketing at top retailers for three of PepsiCo’s $1.5B+ food & beverage portfolios.

Before joining PepsiCo, Berliner developed integrated marketing campaigns at GMMB, a communications strategy firm in Washington, D.C. She has also consulted for Google Food, where she led qualitative research into employee eating habits and provided recommendations implemented at the corporate level to improve food choices. Berliner earned a B.A. in Political Science and French from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

PARABOLIC

Mary Tarczynski has 30+ years of experience leading cross-functional teams to build equity and drive sales for CPG brands including Coca-Cola, Kraft, Clorox and Campbell’s. She left corporate marketing to spend four years in emerging ad tech; then in 2016 co-founded Parabolic, a shopper marketing agency offering “ideas with trajectory” – integrated strategies, concepts and activations –  to help established and emerging natural brands sell in and sell through at retail. Current clients include Diamond Foods, Good Foods, the Plant-Based Foods Association, Straus Family Creamery, Traditional Medicinals, and Weleda Skin Care.

Mary is currently the Education & Networking Events lead on the Naturally Bay Area Board. She is an advocate for diversity in leadership and recently “retired” after 13 years of volunteer leadership with the Network of Executive Women (now called NEXTUp) in Northern California.

She and her husband live in the Oakland Hills and are the proud parents of Brown University and UCLA grads and a current UC Santa Cruz student. When not working, volunteering, or traveling for fun, Mary can be found running or hiking on Bay Area trails.

MISTA

Jim is the Chief Operating Officer for MISTA, the world’s leading food innovation platform. He is a 30-year CPG veteran with mix of large company and start-up experience. He started his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble. During his 10 years at P&G, including 7 overseas, Jim built a variety of brands and categories. While at Coca-Cola, Jim led a $2 billion-dollar portfolio of brands, including the Sprite, PowerAde and Minute Maid brands. As an SVP at Visa, Jim led the repositioning of the Visa brand and introduced a brand management system to the marketing function. Over the last several years he has focused on bringing his experience to helping small to medium sized companies scale. He was one of the first executives at the fin-tech start-up Yodlee, which went public in 2015. While at Bare Escentuals, he led product and marketing and helped position the company for a successful sale to cosmetics giant Shiseido. Most recently, he led the expansion of start-up Caveman Foods, helping them to become a leading provider of Paleo snacks. Jim received his MBA from Cornell University and lives with his wife and two children in Burlingame, CA.

Cultivate Creations

Vanessa is the Founder of Cultivate Creations, a boutique marketing, strategy, and innovation consulting firm focused in driving expansive growth for emerging and established natural and organic brands. She is consummate advocate for the consumer perspective and loves smart design, breakthrough integrated marketing, and innovative ideas. Cultivate Creations has a deep appreciation for a 360 approach to everything it does, and takes the time and thought necessary to ensure that its work and ideas speak to consumers, retailers, sales organizations, trade partners, press, and internal audiences.

New Hope Network

Carlotta Mast is the Senior Vice President of Content and Insights for Informa’s Global Health & Nutrition Network, which includes the New Hope Network in Boulder, Co. She is also the current board president for Naturally Boulder and sits on the boards of the Climate Collaborative, whose mission is to leverage the power of the natural products industry to reverse global warming, and of the Supplement Online Wellness Library (OWL), an industry-wide, self-regulatory initiative designed to create a rich and more complete picture of the dietary supplement marketplace for regulators, retailers and industry. Carlotta is a frequent speaker at natural products industry events and conferences and has been interviewed about natural products trends and market performance by The New York Times, NPR, ABC News, Business Week and numerous other media outlets. In 2013, Carlotta co-founded a paleo snack company called Wholly Bites, which hit the market well before Whole Foods Market and other retailers began adding paleo sections to their stores. Wholly Bites was sold in 2016 and is now marketed under the Thrive Tribe brand.

The Intertwine Group

Elliot Begoun is a 30-year industry veteran, author, podcast host, founder of TIG Brands, and a champion of Tardigrades. TIG Brands supports a community of entrepreneurs interested in building nimble, capital-efficient, resilient brands that become Tardigrades, not Unicorns. Learn more about TIG Brands’ programs here and catch Elliot at FoodBytes, the Hirshberg Entrepreneurship Institute, and the Natural Products Business School. Tune into the TIG Talks podcast and find Elliot’s articles in publications such as The Huffington Post, SmartBrief, and New Hope.