Full Sail Brewing Co. has hired beer industry veteran Andy Krakauer to serve as the company’s new vice president of sales.
Krakauer, who most recently served as the director of business development and strategy at MillerCoors, said he plans to bring further “structure” and “rigor” to the company’s sales force.
“I think absolutely, positively we have fantastic brands, fantastic beers,” he told Brewbound. “I just think we need to have a bit more rigor on the sales side of things, a little bit more rigor about how we go about business, how we go to market. I think I’ll be able to help the sales organization become a bit more — I’m not sure what the right word is — perhaps a bit more structured in how we go to market.”
Krakauer’s first official day at Full Sail was yesterday.
Irene Firmat, founder and CEO of the Hood River, Ore.-based brewery, emphasized Krakauer’s experience, saying it would help bolster both the focus and implementation of the brewery’s sales efforts.
“Andy’s skills and experience will strengthen the focus and execution of Full Sail’s strategic plan as we continue to build on our long term partnerships with our distributor and retail customers,” she said in a press statement. “Andy will be a great asset to our team and we are all very happy to welcome him on board.”
Krakauer got his start in the beer industry at Mesa Distributing in San Diego, Calif. Additional jobs in the wholesale tier include stints at Anheuser-Busch InBev in California and Reyes Beverage Group in Southern California. In addition to working as MillerCoors’ director of business development and strategy, Krakauer also led the company’s SmartSKU Distribution Program.
A native Oregonian, Krakauer said the opportunity to return to the Pacific Northwest and work at a smaller, more independent operation was “really refreshing.”
“I think it fosters a really good culture and a really good environment,” he said. “Everyone knows what they do has an impact.”
This isn’t the company’s first noteworthy hire in 2014. In April, Full Sail announced Jim Brady, a former sales director at A-B InBev, would take over as the Pacific Northwest regional sales manager.