Brewbound Podcast: BREW Making Moves Preview With NBWA COO Kim McKinnish

[00:00:11] Ad Read: Hello, and welcome to the Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.

[00:00:16] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante. And I'm Zoe Licata.

[00:00:19] Ad Read: And this is a special edition of the Brewbound Podcast that we're bringing you for the National Beer Wholesalers Association's annual convention week. This one, we are going to feature Kim McInnish, Chief Operating Officer and SVP at the NBWA to talk about the Making Moves Conference brought to you by Brew and the Women in Beer Alliance. Very much looking forward to this. And I know Jess is too, because this is going to be your first brew.

[00:00:48] National Beer: First, BRU, I'm so excited. And for anybody not in the loop, BRU is actually an acronym. It stands for Building Relationships and Empowering Women. And BRU and the Alliance for Women in Beer kind of work hand in hand a little bit, but BRU is specifically an MBWA initiative about recruiting and retaining women to the middle tier, whereas the Alliance is for all three tiers of the beer industry. And embarrassingly, I've never been to this event because Two years ago, Justin, you and I were at another beer industry conference that was scheduled at the same exact time in the room right next door. And the next year, I had just had a baby. So I am pumped to finally attend this event that you both speak so highly of.

[00:01:34] Jessica Infante: Yeah, this is a fun time. There's always really great speakers. And this year they've kind of integrated it a little bit more where it's instead of one day, it's two days. And the first part is literally right after basically the end of the MBWAs convention content. So I'm excited for this year.

[00:01:54] Ad Read: That was one of my hopes was that they were going to do more crossover integration with the annual convention. And it sounds like the big hang up has been the expo in Vegas. It's the whole time that you're there. And with the product showcase, when you're not in Vegas, it's only one day. So it sort of opens up the playbook for them.

[00:02:17] National Beer: Yeah, that totally makes sense. So we will be in San Diego. It is not a Vegas year. I mean, I feel like Zoe, I remember your review from the first year that you went when we were in Chicago, was that like, it was really great. And the people who most need to hear this message about Empowering Women to become leaders in this industry were mostly not in the room. So yeah, it sounds like they're really making steps toward correcting that.

[00:02:42] Jessica Infante: Yeah, that first year was, really refreshing at first because that was my first year I'd ever been to the NBWA annual convention. And I was, I was like slightly uncomfortable after that because it was the first time I'd been in a room that was filled with majority older white men in suits. And I felt very out of place. And I've talked about this before on the podcast. And then I went to this brew stuff right afterwards and I was suddenly in a room filled with majority of women. felt so great. And then as the event was going on, I was realizing, oh, this, this is awesome. But there's a little bit of preaching to the choir where it's a mix of both stage content to talking about like how you can better Empowering Women in the industry. And then it's also some kind of like personal empowerment type stuff. So it's like Empowering Women women themselves in their professional lives. And so that made sense for it to be a lot of majority women. But the really important content about just making the workplace and the industry better, was falling on a lot of years that knew this and they were going to benefit from it and not necessarily the folks that could be doing a lot of the decision making. And it's an event that's open to everybody. It's encouraged that regardless of your gender or your business title, you go to this event. And by the second year, there was, I think, a lot more men in the room, but it still was, you saw a lot of people leaving for the airport. Pretty quickly. And so hopefully this year might look a little bit different.

[00:04:11] Ad Read: Definitely. Well, we're all three going to be at the event. We're also going to be at our happy hour at the lost Abby's church. You can join us from four to 6. P.m. Sunday in between NFL games, as well as before the NBWA is official kickoff party. So that's Sunday, September 29th. You can sign up now at Brewbound.com four to 6. P.m. Lost Abby's church.

[00:04:37] Jessica Infante: It'll be fun. Keep saying it'll be fun. And we don't lie about fun.

[00:04:41] National Beer: We don't lie about fun. No, we would have to go to confession with father. Tell me if we did.

[00:04:46] Ad Read: Exactly. And we'll also have fun at Brewbound live or everybody else will have fun. I think the three of us will be, or at least I'll be stressed out, but. December 11th and 12th in Marina del Rey, California. You can join us. It's our end of year business conference for the beer in Bev Alc industries. So come check it out. Check out the speaker lineup so far at Brewbound.com. Get your tickets. Join us. Let's talk a little bit of news and then get to our interview with Kim. And we learned this week that Tilray is releasing a whole portfolio of hemp derived Delta 9 THC infused beverages. They're going to hit key markets. They said, I think it was like maybe 10 or so close to that Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. I didn't count them in my head, but. quite a few. And then they've got like four different beverage brands that they're going to bring to market. And one of them is playing on the 420 brand, which pretty obvious, but interesting that there's no mention of like Sweetwater in regards to that in their own PR.

[00:06:02] National Beer: No, that's really interesting. And the fact that that's the only one is curious to me because I feel like so much of what they had said when they started this craft beer acquisition adventure many years ago now was that they were really interested in using these craft beer brands to introduce THC drinks because consumers would already know those brands. And maybe the mission has changed. I don't know.

[00:06:31] Jessica Infante: I could see them potentially doing it further down the road when there is, one, a greater consumer understanding of what these products are, and two, a greater understanding of just what the regulatory guidelines are for these products. Maybe they don't want to taint those names quite yet if something changes, because it seems to constantly be changing in that space, like we just saw it happen in California just a couple weeks ago. So maybe this is just their way to do it without potentially risking some of those brands. Totally right.

[00:07:01] National Beer: And I know the Farm Bill changed everything and made everything different and kind of legal. But this list of states to me is... Random. Wild.

[00:07:12] Ad Read: Well, and the product lineup is kind of wild to me too, because you would think, you know, you might dip your toe in with like one brand. We're talking about four brands here and like multiple flavors for most, most all of them, I think. And they're five milligrams of hemp derived THC per 12 ounce can, but you've got 420 Fizz, that's one brand. Urban Bloom, that's the second. Fizzy Jane's, that's the third. And then Happy Flower, which I believe is a cannabis brand that they're sort of crossing over from Canada to the US. But 420 Fizz is described as a sleek, modern brand. And it's a seltzer, if I remember right. And then Urban Bloom is what they called a super premium mocktail. Fizzy Jane's is seltzers in three flavors, blackberry, blood orange, and vanilla. And then Happy Flower is another cocktail-inspired beverage line, and that's margarita flavor, strawberry daiquiri flavored, and a peach bellini flavored one.

[00:08:19] Jessica Infante: I mean, it's just like when they announced all those new brands that they were coming out with, like not related to their craft ones, like the canned water brand and stuff like they announced so many at once. Like they're not they're not just trying one or two things. They're going full throttle with these things. A whole pot of pasta on the wall.

[00:08:41] Ad Read: It is full throttle too. I mean, there is no breathing room between finishing the acquisition of the four Molson Coors brands. So you've got to integrate those brands. You're just gotten possession of them, the keys to the breweries and whatever within the last, what, month, month and a half, if that.

[00:09:02] Jessica Infante: I mean, it's been like, what, like 16 months from when they bought all the AB brands, announced all the new brands. then did the Molson Coors deal, then doing this. That's within a year and a half or less, they have done so many things. Less?

[00:09:21] National Beer: I mean, it was just August of last year that the AB stuff happened. Wild. The Tillery crew did seem to have a more in-depth conversation with our friends and colleagues at Beer Business Daily. And they told them that distributors have been asking them for this, which makes sense. I mean, if you had a significant supplier partner that actually does their bread and butter and cannabis and all of the Delta 9 stuff has been happening, like, yeah, I get it.

[00:09:49] Ad Read: This feels like at least two to three years of innovation in one year, basically. And rolling out in October, like some of it selling online now.

[00:10:02] National Beer: Yeah, and they also said they weren't gonna dabble with this until federal legalization happened. I know this is different, but here we all are. And this news comes on the back of stuff that we have been trying to report and did report some of last week is they have been laying off a lot of people in their craft beer brands. Not just 10 Barrel too, from my understanding. Yeah, no, we're hearing brands like across the country, which makes sense. I mean, these things happen after mergers and acquisitions. It's pretty common. Then we do know there was a small handful of people on the Molson Coors side who didn't go with those brands in the deal and stayed on at Molson Coors.

[00:10:47] Ad Read: Yep. Or didn't.

[00:10:48] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I'm going to be curious to hear what it said either on stage or in any of our conversations we have with wholesalers next week about Delta 9 and these products. Tilbury isn't the only one who said that wholesalers are asking for these types of things. And so I'm curious to get their perspective on it. It seems like what's driving a lot of their enthusiasm is they want to kind of almost like stake a claim on these products before other distributor sectors do. And they want these products to be on beer trucks. if there is some sort of more understood regulatory thing happening with them, that they will already know what to do with these products and have those connections. But yeah, they seem to be totally into it, even with all the uncertainty around them right now.

[00:11:38] Ad Read: Yeah. And they did create a separate business unit to oversee this. It's a lot. It seems like a lot to me, and I'm an outsider and maybe they've got a full handle on all of this, but We laid it out, you know. It's a lot when you're releasing new-to-the-world brands, THC-infused brands, you're taking on Molson Coors brands, you've just integrated AEB's brands. There's going to be a pop quiz at some point where we have to name off all the Tilray brands.

[00:12:14] Jessica Infante: I don't know that I can get to half of them. totally new marketplace anymore, it's pretty crowded. There are so many products in that space right now. Even you could just go to our office or something and you see our Bev-Elk fridge for things that get sent to us for new launches and samples. Basically, one whole door of that is now just these types of products because folks are trying to get into it right now while they can, maybe before there's harsher restrictions on things. But they're not putting these products into just like a pretty open marketplace. They're putting these into a very competitive marketplace right now. Honestly, it feels like the early days of hard seltzer.

[00:13:09] Ad Read: Yeah, totally. You're looking for a lottery ticket. You're looking for like one winner that's going to pop. And if it does, great. And if not, maybe you they're in like fail fast and move on mode.

[00:13:24] National Beer: Yeah.

[00:13:25] Ad Read: Well, with that, we should probably get to our featured interview with Kim McKinnish from the NBWA talking about the Alliance for Women in Beer and Brew Making Moves Conference. The third annual Brew and Alliance for Women in Beer Making Moves event is taking place next week as part of the NBWA's annual convention in San Diego. Joining us now to discuss is Kim McInnish, SVP and CFO for the National Beer Wholesalers Association. Thanks for being here, Kim.

[00:13:59] Wholesalers Association: Great. Excited. Excited to talk about Making Moves.

[00:14:02] Ad Read: I'm excited to talk about it, too, because I got to stay for a little bit of the first one. I got to stay for a little bit longer of the second one. And I think I'm going to make it through the actual whole event this year, which I'm very excited to see. So I want to get a sort of a vibe check of the conference. What's different about this event than others that sort of makes it special?

[00:14:27] Wholesalers Association: I think there's a lot and I'm glad that you're gonna be able to stay for the whole event this year. I think to get a full taste of it to see from beginning to end is great. You know, the obvious is that 80% of the attendees are women, right? That's completely different in the beer industry. So right there. I think it's high energy, I mean everybody comes it's short. This year we're doing it based on the way that our convention is because we do the one day trade show. So this year we have the opportunity to split it between two days so we're doing Half a day on Tuesday, a welcome reception, then half the day on Wednesday. So that's a little bit different format, but it's short, it's concise, it's very targeted with the content. People come in excited to network, and I think it's just an environment we don't see in any other industry conference. it has a bit more of a buzz to it. Now that we're on our third year, people know a little bit more what to expect. And that gives it a different feel. I mean, at the end of the day, like the whole objective of the event is for us to inspire, engage, and excite women to work in the industry. We want them to leave completely jazzed up and excited about their career and planning to stay in the industry and move forward in their career.

[00:15:45] National Beer: Kim, I'm like almost embarrassed to say this. I've never been. This is my first brew event. So what should I and other first time attendees expect? How should I prepare?

[00:15:54] Wholesalers Association: Okay, well, I think you're gonna love it. And the good news is that they don't build on each other, right? Content's separate. So I think you'll be able to jump right in. One thing that we're doing, we did a webinar in August about how to get the most out of attending a work event. and I can send you the link and anybody else who wants it. And it just talks about how do you go to an event like this and get the most out of it. And a lot of it is connection, right? You leave with networking and that's constantly reinforcing the survey feedback that we get. So we are next week going to share a list of who's coming. So if you see anybody in there that you know and you want to connect with, are you meant to make a target list of who you'd like to meet while you're there? That's an opportunity the full agenda is out and we were purposeful this year there were a couple things you know each year we get a lot of survey feedback and there were a couple things that came through loud and clear last year one was to have some. Opportunities to learn more about mid career space like we had a wealth of industry leaders last year and it was inspiring but some folks said I didn't see myself on stage because I'm not CEO and I don't know if that's my track so what is for me in the middle there and so we have some focus on that. And there's great excitement and buzz, like I said, when everyone comes together. Last year's welcome reception, Justin, I don't know if you were at the welcome reception, but holy cow, it was like this room full of excitement. There were a number of industry veterans, including Jim Cook, who said, Oh my gosh, I don't know that I've been at a reception where there is like this much buzz. And it was only for an hour. So they, you know, we got feedback, make that longer. So we're doing it for two hours this year. So. It will give folks a chance to have some content. On Tuesday afternoon, we're purposely feeding in the last thing we're doing is a 45-minute networking exercise. So if you don't get to meet anyone else, you'll get to know the people that are sitting at your table. So when you go to the welcome reception, you already know some folks, and then you'll have an opportunity to meet more before we kick off on Wednesday morning.

[00:18:05] National Beer: That's so smart. I have been a woman in the beer industry for 14 years in and around. I don't know that I would call what we do necessarily in, but networking is still, it can be weird. It can be awkward if you're not used to it. I think it can be slightly uncomfortable. So I think having this exercise right before the party, genius.

[00:18:26] Wholesalers Association: Right, so we're excited about it. We have a few keynote speakers, but one of in effect, I was going to say almost everybody's a keynote speaker, like in any other conference, like we are super lucky that we have industry leaders who want to present to this group, right? So we have a really just a whole. Platform of keynotes but in our paid speaker range we have this duo Dr Cynthia Benson Mercer and Kimberly Rath who are doing a keynote on Wednesday morning but they have this networking exercise that they've done with a number of groups is called focus on you and it has. You know, it's very regimented in terms of questions you ask and how you interact with people at the table. And they were like, people do this and they stand up and clap. So no one stands up and claps. I'm going to be kind of disappointed, but we are home for big things. So like I said, you know, at least that gives you some platform of somebody to walk in with because, you know, you do, you go to these events and you think, you know, some people and, you know, it's good to have a conversation starter. It's good to have a reason to talk. And then even just somebody to walk into the next room with.

[00:19:32] National Beer: Well, I will make sure that my table stands up and claps.

[00:19:34] Wholesalers Association: Okay, thank you. You're welcome. At least two.

[00:19:38] National Beer: We will not sit at the same table, so.

[00:19:40] Wholesalers Association: Okay.

[00:19:40] National Beer: We'll think about that. What are some of the themes that are going to come out of this conference?

[00:19:46] Wholesalers Association: Well, we call it Making Moves. So the first year, I don't even think we named it. We just, it was. And then last year we named it Making Moves because we thought that was their theme, right? It was about, you know, breaking boundaries, getting out of your comfort zone, managing your energy, starting something new. And we realized when we started working on it this year, that's an ongoing theme, right? So Making Moves is going to permanently be the name, and then we will come up with what we think the theme is for each year. So this year, the theme we're working on is level up, and it can be level up in your career, your professional skills, your personal life, your community, the industry even. And we've asked all the speakers to, when they consider the content they're going to present, you know, somehow connected with this notion of leveling up. And we're hoping that, you know, at a minimum, people identify some skills they have that they can apply to their career, and then also at least have a framework of thinking about what's next for me as part of leveling up.

[00:20:53] Ad Read: Career advancement is obviously one of the important things about the event, but what other issues do you see as most pertinent for this conference to take on?

[00:21:04] Wholesalers Association: Obviously, like we said, networking connections. We have, if you look at attendance, it breaks out about 50-50 distributor and supplier. We have, obviously, trade press. We have some MBWA associate members. There are a few retailers. We keep trying to add additional retailers around the table. But it's folks across brands and tiers who wouldn't normally have a chance to connect. And that, we feel like, is part of this career advancement. You know, one thing we're trying to take a little deeper dive on this year is career pathing. And one thing I think for women in the industry, they start when we, you know, we intentionally were asking folks the first year around, like, how did you end up in the industry? A lot of people who have been in beer for a while accidentally ended up they didn't intentionally start to get in and to beer, you know, and what we want now is people to choose it like that to be in an industry of choice. And so, what are some career opportunities so when. at the tables, I'm going to give away all these secrets now, people are already going to come, but they're not going to come. But, you know, at each table, we were going to ask about career pathing, right? Like how did you get, you know, what were the stages? And some people, you know, go a windy road and some people are more direct, but how did you get where you are in the industry? And then if we compile that information, it's just options for people to consider or interests that they maybe wouldn't think about, like We are, I'm going to moderate a panel on operations and supply chain, because that is one of the things that popped in the survey. Like we don't talk about that as a career path for women, but why not? And actually there are a number of highly successful women in the industry who are, who are doing that. And so we're going to talk about that. So a little bit about, you know, career advancement, career pathing about networking and then content that we think is super applicable. to the audience that we have in the room. And as we promote this, we talk about, I mean, this is meant to be for women and for men. We have a target of at least a 20% to be men in the room. Last year, we hit that number. We were right at it. We did a brew leadership forum in April in conjunction with our legislative conference, and we were far exceeded the 20% number. And I think for two reasons, one, obviously the content is for anybody in the industry, right? It's good, solid content that will further anybody's career. But in addition, for women to succeed in the industry, you need allies and they need to be equipped with knowledge to help with that path.

[00:23:41] National Beer: So I'm glad you brought that up actually. And I think we've covered what BRUCE stands for in this conversation, but if we have not, it is Building Relationships and Empowering. However, you just said the event's not just for women. It's great stage content, great networking. It's stuff that everybody needs to know. So it sounds like you hit the goal of 20% men in the room last year. Amazing. How has the conversation been around this and how receptive have men in the industry been to the idea that something like this has been happening?

[00:24:13] Wholesalers Association: It's been positive. I'm guessing if you have a negative notion, they probably haven't shared it with me, but it's been super positive. Like I said, there was a ton of energy in D.C. when we did the legislative conference. And so just to back up a little bit, so BRU is Building Relationships and Empowering, and that is meant for MBWA distributor members and our associate member partners. And our core purpose for that is to attract, connect and elevate women in the beer and beverage distribution industry. And then there is the Alliance for Women in Beer, which, you know, Making Moves is a partner event. And the Alliance for Women in Beer is all three tiers. And so we have, you know, distributors, suppliers, and retailers around the leadership table for that. And the mission there is to make the industry an industry of choice and opportunity for women. So to attract women into the industry to make sure that we keep the women that are here and provide them with career advancement. And so when we talk about men in the room, it's interesting because we first started talking about allies. How do you have, how do people understand, you know, how do you talk about, and we're always very specific, you know, it's not a sort of a metric like you need X percentage of women in leadership. It is, for any position, consider the best candidate, right? Consider women in the industry, in a male-dominated industry. I think that's the best that you can do, right, is sort of advocate. When you make a choice, consider women too for the role because they could do a great job. And as we've sort of built out what does an advocate for that look like, you know, we've had a lot of enthusiasm. We had folks who came, I think, to support women that worked for them to support their sister to support their cousin and then they leave and a number of them will say oh my gosh like that was my favorite part you know I'll get in trouble for saying that but you know that was my favorite part of coming to convention like it was so exciting and it was different and it had this energetic feel to it and so we've been lucky that that's sort of organically taken place

[00:26:25] National Beer: I know the first year it was held, we had a couple overlapping conferences at the same hotel. And the event was next to, Justin and I were in another meeting and then we shared one of those like hotel ballroom retractable walls. And just the energy levels, the difference was palpable. Like our room was very... Yeah, they were not very happy with us.

[00:26:47] Wholesalers Association: And I was like, I don't know. And that wasn't even like people getting, like a speaker getting the audience riled up. That was just chatter as we took a bathroom break.

[00:26:55] National Beer: I had so much FOMO because it sounded like you guys were having so much fun.

[00:27:00] Ad Read: Yeah, I'm super stoked that it's overlapping, that there is more time between the two events where it just it feels more connected.

[00:27:11] Wholesalers Association: And I think people that you know a lot of times the folks who would be the audience for the Making Moves event might not attend the full MBWA conference. I mean obviously there's a lot of crossover and on the distributor side there's an immense crossover. But on the supplier side that's not always true. Like they don't send a big contingent necessarily to convention that would overlap with who this might be the target audience for. So I think this allows them to come in, it's definitely just a one night stay, right? You come in, you can get into the West Coast by lunchtime, the content starts at two, you can be out by noon, you can get back to the East Coast on the same day. So I think that's a bit more manageable in terms of travel time out of the office or expense. You know, we don't have that luxury in Vegas because we have a two-day trade show. But, you know, we had great numbers last year. I don't want to jinx it because we still have registration here, but you're hearing it first. I think we're going to beat last year's number, and that's my prediction. So I'm excited about that. And, I mean, you never know. You know, obviously, we have more distributors out of Vegas shows than we do here and associate members. So I think it's exciting that it continues to get stronger each year.

[00:28:24] Ad Read: How much overlap is there between the NBWA annual convention attendance and the Making Moves event?

[00:28:31] Wholesalers Association: I haven't looked at the numbers this week. I would say about a third.

[00:28:35] Ad Read: Yeah, just trying to get like a historical sort of gauge. So attendees don't even necessarily go to the convention, you know, they're coming specifically for the event.

[00:28:46] Wholesalers Association: Right. That's why I think they were so fired up at that welcome reception, like they had just run. And I don't want to stereotype like, oh, you know, a woman, like an event that's majority women, but we had done rehearsal and room set up. And then I walked out in the hall, like the reception was going to start at 530. And normally our crowd rolls in, it's a staggered roll in. And it was like 520 and there was a sea of people coming down the hallway to come to the reception. And so it was like an orderly line, people were getting their name tags and people were ready to kick it off. So I think those are the folks who hadn't already been in Vegas, you know, for three nights.

[00:29:24] Ad Read: It was a blast. You're right. There was just a different type of energy for that welcome reception.

[00:29:30] Wholesalers Association: And I think, you know, this year, like I said, we're going to so we have a lot of great I don't know if you guys have had a chance to look at the speaker list that we have, you know, on Tuesday afternoon, Erica Ayers-Bedan, who is speaking on the MBWA stage in general session. It was great because we got a twofer for her. She recently wrote a book, Nobody Cares About Your Career, which I think is a very funny title. And she is going to talk, obviously, to MBWA general session about something different, but to the Make and Moves audience. I mean, first of all, she was CEO of Barstool Sparts. And I think I always, I repeatedly say this, but, you know, I don't know, maybe that might be the only more male dominated environment than the beer business, right? And she succeeded. And so she's going to talk about that and leadership. She's going to talk some about career building skills and your career building blocks that she writes about in her book. So I think there's going to be great energy around that. And then we have a retailer panel that afternoon. And then we have Sofia Colucci, the CMO from Molson Coors is going to talk about your career. Superpower, a merrily kick is starting us off, you know, buzz balls, right? So a lot of energy in the room for that. We have some built-in networking exercises, and then we have the full-blown networking to finish up that day. And so I think everyone's going to, you know, we're kicking it off strong right from the beginning.

[00:31:07] National Beer: I'm so excited. So one thing that, you know, we've touched on a little bit is a lot of the goals here to recruit women into our industry and to get them into leadership roles. So what benefits do companies stand to gain from promoting women? Because I have plenty of ideas and I'm sure you do too, but specifically like sometimes companies need to hear like, hey, like businesses that have this amount of women on their board of directors are this much more profitable. It's a thing, it's documented.

[00:31:37] Wholesalers Association: Right. It is a thing. And we intentionally try to talk about it like that. You know, it's for economic impact. Right. We're not just doing this because it's like a feel good initiative. It's intended to make a cultural and economic benefit on our member companies. And so we do have a number of Harvard Business Review studies, McKinsey studies that we talk about in terms of, you know, if you have women in leadership, Sometimes it's just, it's not numbers, it's, you know, soft skills like they rate higher and the things that are in leadership and that lead to employee retention or recruitment. We talk about, you know, it's better sound business making decisions. It's better customer service. It's, you know, a lot of things that people look to in order to make their company stronger for the bottom line, but also a better place to work. And so we talk about it twofold. There is a study that it's a, you know, executive teams made up of more than 30% women are more likely to outperform those without by as much as 48%. And that's about bottom line dollar, right? So it's socially responsible, it's decision-making, it's keeping your employees. And we talk about that too. I don't have those numbers off the top of my head, but quantifying turnover, right? So if you can bring female leaders in and they help you stabilize and retain employees, that's a financial benefit just right there from the start.

[00:33:08] National Beer: Huge. How can companies help women feel more welcome once they do reach the upper levels of a traditionally male-dominated industry?

[00:33:18] Wholesalers Association: We haven't gotten to tackling that. Maybe that's next year's theme, but maybe that's next year. You've leveled up. Now we're going to make you feel comfortable. But I mean, I would say a lot of it is the same. I think some of it's awareness, right? Like we're having these conversations more. We're having it more in our general session, our distributor member meetings. making sure the connections, the career paths, the opportunities that, you know, people have a seat around the table. And, you know, I see it just, you know, here sometimes, you know, you make sure that you don't exclude somebody, like it becomes obvious once you start thinking of it or paying attention, right? I don't want to exclude the only woman that I have on my team, right? And we're going to need to do this. And then just also in terms of bonding, this comes up a number of times when we have open questions. You know, how do you how do you make sure when your leadership team bonds and you do things where you do your planning for the year? Are you do connections that are intra company? How do you make sure it's inclusive of your women leaders, the same as male leaders?

[00:34:25] National Beer: I just anecdotally know of plenty of women leaders in the industry who specifically learned to golf so that they didn't miss out on whatever networking happened in that. You know what I'm saying? They love the golf now that they know how to do it, but it's one of those things.

[00:34:41] Wholesalers Association: Right. And, you know, my career started out of distributors. So they were always golf tournaments. And I was always, if it's best ball, I'm in. If it's not best ball, I cannot go. Right. And then I think I shortchanged I didn't talk about our second day of content but you know what we're leading off the I told you the duo of Dr Cynthia Benson Mercer and Kimberly Rath they've written a book called now near next and it's about your career like identifying your strengths your skills like what is now for you. what is near for you and what's next and so they talk about that and how to apply it to your career but then we're taking it one step further and then they are doing a panel an industry panel immediately after they finish their keynote and it's going to include Laurel Slick from Reyes, Portia Simmons-Dowell from Glaziers, and Connie Kim from Heineken. So everyone will have a chance to see, like, these are women that are successful in the industry. They all have different careers, they have different paths they've come from, and how do they apply those skills? So it's like taking it and then immediately applying it to the beer industry.

[00:35:51] National Beer: I just realized that one of my very good friends is on your speaker roster, Rosalie Kennedy.

[00:35:58] Wholesalers Association: Oh, yes. So she's helping close out the day. So the other speakers that we have that day, we have Laura Merritt, who recently took over as president of Diageo Beer Brands is speaking. We have a fireside chat that Craig Purser is doing with two of our distributor members from Breakthrough. Candy Harvey and Sinead Cary, who are both with Breakthrough in California. I'm doing the panel that I talked about operations supply chain, and that includes Bridget Smith from Ariglio, Natalie Burbage from Constellation, and Stacey, I don't know how to say her last name, I should have had her. Fool me on that from mark anthony brands and pauline lucas from anheuser-busch is going to speak about leveling up in the industry and then we are closing out with whitney stevenson erica taylor and rosalie kennedy who. Independently, we were talking about each of them speaking, right? So Whitney Stevenson recently took over as president at Juneshine. We have Erika Taylor at Boston Beer, and then Rosalie Kennedy at Athletic Brewing, and I guess they all started at Boston Beer. They were all friends there, and you too? Yeah. Okay, so we should have had you on stage as part of that friend group.

[00:37:11] National Beer: Well, I will be around.

[00:37:13] Wholesalers Association: So that's the conversation to energize everyone as they walk out of the room, right? Everybody started together, they started different places, they branched off. And so that's going to be a great day too.

[00:37:26] National Beer: That's awesome.

[00:37:27] Wholesalers Association: And then we have a steering committee, Whitney Stevenson is part of our steering committee. And she, you know, was from, obviously she was at Boston Beer when we started planning the event. And then J.B. Ryan from Molson Coors, Jen Litzkirk from Beer Business Daily, and Laurie Scheifler from Tamron Consulting. And so everyone has brought a lot of energy to the table and helped us sort of, you know, curate these great speakers that had a wide breadth of experience and knowledge to share with the audience.

[00:37:59] National Beer: Well, I'm even more excited than I was before. And I again, I'm ashamed that this has not happened for me yet in my life. But I did crash the welcome reception two years ago.

[00:38:07] Wholesalers Association: So okay, there you go. Oh, my gosh, that welcome reception. See, every year we get better that welcome reception, we were not expecting as many people to attend as came and it was people were waiting in the hall of a sort of like a bar at the beach, you know, one in one out. Last year, it was big enough, but it was too short. So now we're going big and long. So there we go.

[00:38:29] National Beer: Oh, I'm so excited. I hear you on the consider women pitch to companies in the industry, but what's our pitch to women? How do we say, hey, consider beer and beverages?

[00:38:40] Wholesalers Association: Right. Well, you know, this is interesting because I've been trying to sort this out because we have been, I think, really successful at our goals that we set about connecting, elevating women in the industry, right? Development and the attracting folks from the outside in. I still was trying to wrap my arms around how we're going to achieve that goal. So when we were in DC, We had this woman, Amy Jo Martin, who's actually going to be in general session. She's going to be talking about category growth with some brewery CEOs. But she is, her whole mantra is this why not now moment. And you guys will hear it on Monday. She'll explain it all. But we connected and we just had a lot of different conversations. And she was asking me, what's your why not now moment? And I said, I, right now, it's trying to figure out how I'm going to attract women into the industry. And she said, and I've been following this ever since. She goes, I think you're trying to make this too complicated. And this was at the end of beginning of May. I think you're making it too complicated. Like you continue to do the good work that you're doing with the women in the industry. They're going to be your advocates. to bring others in like the more you do for the people already here the more chances that they're going to bring others in or they'll talk about it or people will hear about it and maybe that's what you maybe that's what you need to do for this year and then consider what other opportunities would be out there so i was like i can do that so here we are amazing

[00:40:15] National Beer: Well, Kim, this has been fantastic. We really appreciate your time because I know how busy you are at this time of year, but hopefully we'll be able to grab a beer together in San Diego.

[00:40:25] Wholesalers Association: Pretty soon we'll be there.

[00:40:26] National Beer: Yeah.

[00:40:27] Wholesalers Association: Great. Well, thanks for taking time to talk to me today and learn more about Making Moves.

[00:40:32] Ad Read: Yeah. If anybody wants to sign up and they haven't, you know, and they're in the 11th hour here, how can they find out more?

[00:40:39] Wholesalers Association: It's super easy. You can always just go to the NBWA website. We have an events drop down, but even easier than that, nbwa.org backslash moves moves. Moves. It takes you directly to all the information you need and you can register right there.

[00:40:54] Ad Read: It's easy enough. Well, thanks again for doing this and thanks to everyone for listening. We'll be back next week.