Last week, Sierra Nevada announced the promotion of VP of sales Ellie Preslar to chief commercial officer (CCO) of the California-based craft brewery.
Brewbound caught up with Preslar after the news broke to learn about her responsibilities in the new role, what Sierra Nevada is prioritizing ahead of the summer selling season and how things are going at the company’s newly commissioned CanDo co-packing facility.
Preslar declined to comment on if her position as VP of sales would be backfilled.
Here are highlights from the Q&A:
Brewbound: What will you be focused on in your new role as CCO?
Preslar: My first priority is to continue to grow and strengthen the Sierra Nevada brand and get our beer into more consumers hands at the end of the day, and more drinkers hands. Being able to do that, while working across both sales and marketing – in addition to the responsibility I had just on sales – is really exciting, because those two things really work together to amplify that.
The additional piece will be working and leading the business development part of our collaboration and [CanDo] co-packing facility that we are just getting going on and finishing commissioning and work on.
Brewbound: When your predecessor, former CCO Joe Whitney, announced his retirement in October, Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman said there were no plans to backfill the role. What changed?
Preslar: At that point in time, we haven’t had [new CEO] Pryce [Greenow] join. And Pryce, as he has joined, has just brought a great energy to Sierra Nevada and is really starting his tone and vision to continue the past 40+ years of success we’ve had into the next 40 years.
He’s just thoughtfully making choices, to help us continue to grow and to flourish.
Brewbound: Sierra Nevada is not done with leadership changes. You are also on the hunt for a chief brand director, as Kyle Ingram transitions to director of insights and innovation. What are you looking for from somebody to fill that role?
Preslar: Kyle’s an amazing leader for us, and as we continue to chart our path forward, we wanted to really free up his capacity to be focused on driving insights and innovation and focused on that plank of growth for our business.
With that, we separated out the brand director role, and we’re really excited about the talent that’s coming through the pipeline as we recruit for that role. And I hope in the next month or two, we’ll be excited to share that hire.
(Preslar also noted that the company is looking both internally and externally to fill the role).
Brewbound: You’ve been with Sierra for almost four years now. How has it been in the beer world? Is there anything that surprised you?
Preslar: It’s super fun. I have really enjoyed it … I don’t know that there were any true surprises.
There are challenges here like there have been in every business and category I’ve worked on, and some of the things that we talk about and are seeing with the blurring of segments and the changing habits and preferences of drinkers and different generations, I witnessed that and was seeing that in other categories and other segments that I’ve gotten to work on.
Is it a bit unique in beverage? Yes. Is there a fast pace of innovation? Yes. But I do think that exists [in] other places.
I’ve really enjoyed working within the three-tier system more than I thought I would have.The value and the role that each of the tiers play is definitely unique compared to the first part of my career, and something I’ve really learned a lot from and really enjoyed.
Brewbound: What is it like balancing the new co-packing facility and prioritizing the craft legacy of Sierra, especially with new products and new spaces that are new to everybody in the industry?
Preslar: That’s the beauty of that [CanDo] facility as it comes online, as it allows us to learn in new segments, while still being primarily focused on what we do best, which is brewing beer. We are brewers at the heart, and I think we’re the best brewers in the world, so we’re not losing that.
Through this new facility, we get to try new things. And we can try those things ourselves, but we also get to learn about them through others and through the partners that we’re exploring and through that facility.
Brewbound: On the Sierra Nevada innovation side, what are you focusing on right now?
Preslar: Our main and big launch from an innovation perspective this year has been Trail Pass, our non-alcoholic (NA) beers, and then the expansion of our Hop Splash [hop-infused sparkling water], with the addition of Hop Splash Citrus. And those are off to a really strong start.
We’re super excited about that [NA] segment and the incrementality. It brings you into our portfolio, to meet our drinkers and what they’re looking for in a different occasion than how we could serve them in the past.
And then we’re continuing to innovate within beer. We launched our hazy rotator series last year. Cosmic Little Thing was the first in that series for this year. And then in June, we’ll transition to a new beer called Cool Little Thing. That’s been a really fun series to give us a platform to innovate with hazy, while Hazy Little Thing continues to grow.
Brewbound: Trail Pass has popped on some top new brand lists this year. There are so many NA beers coming into the market now. What is it about Trail Pass that’s speaking to consumers?
Preslar: There is a lot that comes with having the Sierra Nevada name on it. People think about Sierra Nevada beers, they think of quality and trust. And they know that we’re going to put a great beer out there. That gives us a little bit of a leg up in that regard.
And then the liquid more than delivers on that promise with both the IPA and Golden. We’ve launched a variety pack in some limited markets now as well. And I think it’s the credibility of people trusting and knowing that we’re only going to put great beer out there and then doing that in the non-alc space that’s what’s driven the early success of that brand.
Brewbound: Do you have plans to add any more offerings to that brand?
Preslar: The brewers have lots of fun ideas in that space, so we’ll see. But we’re really committed right now to the IPA and the Golden. And we want to be responsible stewards of that segment, and make sure that we’re really growing, and growing it in a thoughtful manner with our distributors and our retail partners.
Brewbound: Some of your competitors have launched NA brand extensions of their flagships, and you haven’t done that – you’ve started a new brand. What are some of the early learnings of taking that path as opposed to leveraging the brand equity you build through other brands, like Hazy Little Thing?
Preslar: It’s so early in both our launch and other brands who have taken a different path, that I don’t want to disparage their choice over our choice at this point, because I think either path is viable. We just felt that the best path for us given the liquid development and the promise that we want to keep to our drinkers was to launch a new brand.
Brewbound: What have you learned as far as cannibalization between Hop Splash and Trail Pass, or the crossover in consumers with those two products?
Preslar: Our core Hop Splash 6-pack SKU is still growing while we’ve launched Trail Pass to date, so there’s definitely incrementality there, but exactly how incremental or how different people are choosing one or the other, or choosing them complementary for different occasions, that is something that we’re looking to learn.