Diversity, equity and inclusion – the unspoken topics, Hosted by Skills Alliance
Join Skills Alliance and leaders from Elanco, Boehringer Ingelheim, MSD, Zoetis and IDEXX for this one hour session that will cover:
Corey Bronstein
SVP and General Manager of Sales
Allied Beverage Group
Matt Withington
Brand Director
Boston Beer Co.
Matt Withington is the Marketing Director of Samuel Adams, responsible for brand strategy, communications, and portfolio development. Matt began his career at the Boston Beer Company in 2017, leading the Angry Orchard Hard Cider brand, and has spent more than 15 years in food and beverage as both a marketer and an operator. He and his wife Kayleigh live in Newburyport, MA and are avid travelers.
Milan Martin
Founder & CEO
The Free Spirits Company LLC
Milan is a creative business executive with a history of driving growth and success in both large enterprise and entrepreneurial environments. For the past decade, Milan has held executive-level positions across three continents, leading both Fortune 50 and growth brands.
In 2020, Milan founded The Free Spirits Company and is currently the CEO of the organization. Working with a talented team of multi-disciplinary professionals, Milan is dedicated to changing drinking culture by offering people better “no and low alcohol” options when ‘drinking’. Free Spirits is one of the leading brands in a quickly growing category and is poised to continue to innovate and expand rapidly across markets.
Prior to Free Spirits, Milan led Grey Advertising through a significant turn-around and to the most successful time in its history. Under Milan’s leadership, Grey San Francisco was recognized as one of the fastest growing, most creatively awarded agencies on the West Coast. Taking home top honors at festivals including Effies, Cannes, OneShows and D&AD, in addition to the business results achieved for Grey’s clients were all factors in the Agency being named as Global Agency of the Year three years running.
Earlier in his career, Milan spent over a decade at Ogilvy & Mather in both London and New York City, later joining a digital agency as Chief Strategist where he also orchestrated the sale of the company to a publicly traded organization.
A native of the East Coast, Milan now lives with his family in Mill Valley, California where he plays drums (serviceably) in a neighborhood dad band called “The Sofa Kings”.
Ioana Tanasa
Head of Marketing & Innovation, Non-Alcoholic Beverages (Global)
ABinBev
Ioana Tanasa (pronouns she/her) is currently Senior Marketing Director in the Global Non-Alcoholic Beverage Unit (NABev), part of the ABInbev. In her role she is leading and supporting marketing and innovation efforts across multiple beverage brands distributed across the Americas, Africa, China, and the United Kingdom. Prior to this role she was the Senior Innovation Director in the global team driving the Global Innovation agenda for the ABI Global Beer Brands (Budweiser, Corona & Stella Artois). She started her career in P&G and spent almost a decade working on several categories, as well as building a strong brand marketing & commercial background. Originally from Romania, she holds a B.A in Marketing (Bucharest) as well as an Ashridge Business School Leadership/Management certification. In her free time, she likes to paint, travel, bake, and spend time with family.
Emily Pennington
Manager, Content & Education, Client Development
Park Street
Emily Pennington is Manager, Content & Education at Park Street, a provider of productivity-enhancing and cost-saving back-office solutions, advisory services, working capital, compliance management, export solutions, integrated accounting, and human resources management solutions to more than 16,000 alcoholic beverage brands from the U.S. and around the world. The company’s clients range from entrepreneurs to multi-brand global suppliers, and include craft distillers, centuries-old family businesses, award-winning wineries, innovation brands, and more. Formerly, Ms. Pennington was the Managing Editor for industry trade publication Wine & Spirits Daily, where she reported on breaking news, industry trends and conducted in-depth interviews with executives in the beverage alcohol space for eight years.
Vanessa Eriksson
SVP & Chief Digital Officer
Zenseact
Vanessa is currently SVP, Chief Digital Officer at Zenseact with the mission of bringing the company even further into the digital age. Managing petabytes of data as an asset while simultaneously leading the IT backbone, in pursuing Autonomous Driving. She is also a Member of the Board at Fidesmo and has been the Chairwoman of PwC’s CDO Advisory Board in 2017/18 and on Gartner’s EMEA and The America’s Data & CDO Advisory Boards between 2012 & 2017. A professional and experienced public speaker, Vanessa holds a proven track record in influencing key decision makers. Result oriented, her leadership skills include motivating teams, relationship building and integrity. A mother of 3 girls, Vanessa very feels strongly about encouraging Girls in Tech and has effectively launched a GiT event in 2017 with 4 large companies to promote her cause. Women in Leadership and Gender Diversity are topics that are close to her.
Susan Trent
CEO
Atlantic Therapeutics
Susan Trent, CEO, joined Atlantic Therapeutics in December 2019, leading the successful DTC launch of INNOVO® in the US and quickly demonstrating the scale-up potential of the brand. Prior to Atlantic Therapeutics, Susan spent 20+ years at GSK, building deep Pharmaceutical and Consumer Healthcare experience including the switch and transformation of Rx products into high-growth direct-to-consumer brands in weight control, smoking control, and skincare. Multi-market General Management, Marketing and BD leadership roles across Europe, US and Asia.
