The VentureFuel Visionaries

Russell Barnett is a master marketer of category-creating food and beverage items. Mike’s Hard Lemonade – inception to $150m. Gardein - $30m to $90m before purchase by Pinnacle Foods. Kevita –sold to Pepsi. PopChips – created the entire “popped” category. Now he is the CMO at My/Mo Mochi Ice Cream and recently named to Forbes’ CMO Next List of Game-Changing Marketing Leaders. Russell shares how to be “thumb stopping”, the importance of conflict, why weird is good, why he values bravery over risk and why he rejects the concept of a challenger brand. No one in the world is better at creative partnerships and we also get after how Russell makes those happen.

Almost 50% of all K-12 public school students are "attending" schools that only offer virtual learning, which is changing consumer spending, family life and work for tens of millions of Americans. Burbio, a data service that measures community life, has built a School Opening Tracker providing daily updates across all 3,000 U.S. counties by school district learning plans: virtual, hybrid, and traditional in-person. The service also projects future changes and offers insights into marketing to families during Covid. Co- Founder Dennis Roche shares why this data can give competitive advantages to anyone looking to reach moms and families.

How Chobani has remained a “Spiritual Startup” with Peter McGuinness, the President and Chief Operating Officer at Chobani. Chobani is America’s #1-selling Yogurt brand with eyes on becoming “tomorrow’s food company” by providing better food for more people. Peter shares how they have broken down silos to shift towards a nimbler, team-centric way of organizing; why they embrace a “Warrior Shepherd” mentality, the value of innovating as a category leader, and why Peter is excited to judge VentureFuel’s upcoming NY MilkLaunch competition.

As a fan, when you interact with tech at a stadium you expect it to be intelligent and responsive to who you are. Realife Tech creates personalized fan experiences at live events. They sit atop of all of the data sources at a live venue (ticketing, wifi) to create a unified view of customers for clients like AEG, O2, Live Nation. Today Adam Goodyer, the founder and CEO of Realife Tech, talks about getting fans back to live events via their Covid Safety Hub, how personalized fan experiences lead to increased opportunities for brands, team and event operators and the “Bubbling Cauldron of Entrepreneurship” created by volatility.

Ila Byrne, Principal at Ila Byrne Consulting, led innovation and ideation for Diageo North America. She is an intrapreneur, a proven creator of multi-million dollar breakthrough ideas and Forbes named her one of the “women running the liquor world.” She is the architect of the innovation strategy which led to the most successful new innovation in Vodka in the US (Ketel One Botanicals) and her innovations have been directly credited with growing Diageo’s share price - think Baileys Strawberries & Cream to Crown Royal Flavored Whiskies. We talk about inspiration from startups, how she provokes and protects brands, as well as the future of drinking: no-alc, low-alc, botanicals, nootropics, functional, new occasions, hard seltzers, CBD, THC and holistic.

George began his career as a project manager for Google before cofounding the first on-demand mobile transportation booking technology, Taxi Magic (now known as Curb), two years before Uber was even created. His new company, Shift, is an online marketplace disrupting the car industry and going public via a SPAC. We talk about the journey of this $100M Founder from Immigrant to Entrepreneur, what a SPAC is and how is scaling from an idea to a multi-million-dollar business. We also have a fascinating chat on how large companies can avoid disruption, but often do not.

Wilson founded and leads Cyber NYC, an initiative by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, to strengthen the cyber-security innovation + investment ecosystem in New York. We talk about leveraging the intersection of startups, government, VCs, and academia to create thousands of jobs and why that strong “New Yorker” personality is perfect for a founder (resiliency to meet any challenge). Fuhgeddaboudit!

We have taken insights from past guests to help you understand how and why to build an innovation mindset at your company. Featuring Comcast NBC Universal, Mondelez, Patron, AFVentures, NBA2k, Rogue Women’s Fund and Twitch.

We have taken insights from past guests to answer why established business and large industries should partner with startups. Featuring Mastercard, The Clorox Company, CMAB, Microsoft, Paramount Pictures, Learfield IMG College, Next Ventures, and The Estee Lauder Companies.

Popspots operates Grocery TV, The largest digital advertising network in U.S. grocery. Their tech delivers AI enabled in-store advertising, out-of-stock management, and planogram compliance. What’s unique about Popspots is their use of AI to measure their audience and the value they add to the physical grocery stores, and grocery stores are not only an essential service but the center of our communities.