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Women of the Vine Alliance Forum in Dallas, TX

13 Sep 2016
5:00pm - 7:00pm CDT
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13 Sep 2016
$30.00
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13 Sep 2016
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Women of the Vine Alliance Forum in Dallas, TX

Navigating Your Career in the Wine & Spirits Industry

Hosted by:  Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits

DATE:

Tuesday, September 13, 2016 from 5:00PM - 7:00PM

LOCATION:

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits

14911 Quorum Drive, Suite 400, Dallas, TX

Top Shelf Conference Room, 4th Flr. 

 

Join Deborah Brenner, Founder and President, Women of the Vine Alliance, and our local Advisory Board Members in Texas for an engaging and collaborative evening.  Our panel discussion and Q&A session is aimed to help you effectively navigate your career in the direction you want, learn some strategic leadership skills and ways to overcome roadblocks.  The event will include light appetizers and wine. 

Welcome & Opening Remarks:

Deborah Brenner, Founder & President, Women of the Vine Alliance

Moderator: 

Ben Salisbury, President, Salisbury Creative Group 

Panelists:

Tammy LaNasa, Director of National Accounts, Fetzer Vineyards

Colleen Brennan, Vice President of National Accounts, On Premise, Rodney Strong

Anita Cook-Motard, Director of Strategic On Premise Accounts, Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits 

Tammy LaNasa is the Director of National Accounts for Fetzer.

Unique to most, Tammy LaNasa has held leadership roles in all three facets of the wine industry supply chain. She began her career in New Orleans with Republic National Distributing Company. While there, she received "Salesperson of the Year" 8 times during her 15 year tenure. During her time with Republic, she served as a Key Account Manager, Hotel & Catering Specialist, and a National Account Manager.

In 2008, she left Republic for the rare opportunity to serve as a National Beverage Director for the prestigious Del Frisco's Restaurant Group which would become one of the highlights of her career. During this time, she was responsible for managing 100 MM in beverage and maintaining relationships with 86 beverage suppliers. Tammy will tell you that this experience was "like a second college education" in terms of growth within her field. She held this position for four years.

Longing to be back on the sales side where she started, Tammy joined Fetzer Vineyards in 2012 as their On-Premise National Accounts Director . In addition to Fetzer, she represents Bonterra, Jekel, Sanctuary, Vina Maipo, and Palo Alto wine brands. Tammy is responsible for maintaining and growing all National Account sales within the US.

A Texas native, Tammy attended the University of Texas at Austin for Journalism. She currently resides in the Hill Country just north of San Antonio.

Colleen Brennan is the Vice President of National Accounts On Premise for Rodney Strong.

She is a wine industry professional recognized for her innovative sales and marketing achievements which span over 20 years in the beverage and restaurant industries. She is currently vice president of national accounts for Rodney Strong Wine Estates, where she is responsible for business development, marketing, strategic planning, budgeting and sales for all on premise national account chains. Prior to joining Rodney Strong in 2012, she was director of global accounts and the on-premise marketing specialist at Ste. Michelle Wine Estates where she supervised sales to more than 30 restaurant chains. In this role, she increased sales by 65% over a six-year period and was recognized as the 2007 Salesperson of the Year for Antinori Italian wine brand.

Brennan has also held executive level positions with leading restaurant companies including O’Charley’s and Cypress Companies. She served as director of beverage marketing at O’Charley’s, in charge of managing and growing beverage programs and profits for the restaurant chain’s 200 locations. Brennan’s consultative and creative approach to sales and marketing includes developing an innovative wine and spirits training tool for servers at O’Charley’s that dramatically increased product knowledge and beverage sales. She also created successful incentive contests that boosted sales and team member morale. One promotion resulted in over 200,000 incremental beverages sold during the first 10 weeks alone, representing a 200% increase in sales of one featured drink which became O’Charley’s top-selling beverage. Brennan’s creative strategies earned her a Cheers Beverage Excellence Award for best beverage promotion during this time. As director of restaurant marketing at Cypress Companies, owner of several chain concepts including Denny’s, Houlihan’s and An Tobar Irish Pub, she oversaw all marketing activities for 60 restaurants and pubs across five states. Brennan began her restaurant industry career at Pizzeria Uno Chicago Bar and Grill where she served as a field marketing manager for all corporate-owned locations in Florida.

Brennan currently serves on the Board of Directors for The California Restaurant Association’s Education Foundation and is on the advisory board of Children of Restaurant Employees (C.O.R.E), a nonprofit organization that supports children of restaurant employees who have been afflicted with life-threatening conditions or affected by a significant life-altering circumstance. She has also served on several industry boards including the American Beverage Institute (Committee Chairperson),Cheer’s Magazine and the Millennium Group. Brennan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science from Yale University.

Anita Cook-Motard Director of Strategic On Premise Accounts, Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits.

She has made a career in the wine industry with the Glazers Distribution organization working in many different areas of the company.  Anita began her career with Glazers in 1982 as a sales rep and was promoted through the ranks of sales, marketing, and management.  In 1997 Anita was part of the formation of the Domaines & Estates group within the Glazers organization – a specialized sales division dedicated to small and mid-size wine companies. 

Anita is active in many food and wine organizations such as Les Dames d’ Escoffier, the American Institute of Wine & Food, and the former Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival. Anita loves to cook and enjoys a glass of fine wine now and then.

Ben Salisbury is the Founder and President of Salisbury Creative Group, Inc. His company specializes in maximizing the role technology plays in achieving high levels of sales effectiveness, brand building, and customer loyalty. Leveraging his knowledge and experience from his three decades in the wine & spirits business, Ben is helping many small sales teams use technology to “box above their weight class” and compete with much larger companies. Prior to starting his own company, Ben 17 years as VP of On Premise National Accounts for both Ste Michelle Wine Estates and Constellation Brands US. Ben and his wife, Bessie, live in Dallas, Texas.

Deborah Brenner is the Founder & President of Women of the Vine Alliance.  She graduated from the University of Delaware with degrees in English and Journalism, and was soon hired by a television and film technology company that required international travel to countries for whom wine is a part of everyday life. After over 20 years in the male-dominated field of high-end technology and owning a marketing and public relations firm, Ms. Brenner discovered during a fortuitous trip to Napa and Sonoma that many women in the wine industry – like her own – were under-recognized. Compelled to tell their stories, she authored a bestselling collection of profiles on women in the wine industry, Women of the Vine: Inside the World of Women Who Make, Taste and Enjoy Wine, which Wine Spectator named a Critical Read of 2007.

Through the process of writing the book and championing its subjects, Ms. Brenner became inspired to enter the wine business herself, releasing wine from a first-of-its-kind collective of seven artisan women winemakers from Napa, Sonoma and Paso Robles. For the following seven years, Ms. Brenner learned the business inside and out. Ultimately, however, all the money, blood, sweat and (a lot) of tears could not foster women in the wine industry the way Brenner had hoped, which led her to shut down the Women of the Vine wine brand and return to the drawing board.

One year later, Brenner organized the inaugural Women of the Vine Global Symposium, held in March of 2015, which quickly sold out to 500 women from five countries. Due to the overwhelming response, Brenner and the Women of the Vine Advisory Board went to work developing a consortium that supports professionals in the alcohol beverage industry year-round. Thus emerged the Women of the Vine Alliance, a membership-based organization, anchored by the annual Symposium, whose mission is to empower and equip women worldwide to advance their careers in the alcohol beverage industry, fostering gender diversity and talent development across the industry at large.

Ms. Brenner has received a Rising Star Award from Women for WineSense (2008), a New York Small Business Administration Women in Business Champion Of The Year (2009), a New York City National Association of Women Business Owners Signature Award (2010), the Lillian Vernon Award for Outstanding Community Service by the Women's Enterprise Development Center (2011), a NY Women in Communications Rising Star Award (2013), and the Rockland Business Women's Network Woman of the Year Award (2014). She is also a member of Senator Gillibrand’s NY Agriculture Working Group. She resides in Rockland County, New York.

Attendees (25)

13 Sep 2016
5:00pm - 7:00pm CDT

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  • 14911 Quorum Dr #400, Dallas, TX 75254, USA
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