Boot Camp: Education to Get You Started

Marco De Leon is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Rip Van Wafels, a high-growth snack food brand pioneering the snack wafel category in the US. A native of Amsterdam, Rip began making snack wafels in his dorm room at Brown University as he couldn’t find his favorite childhood treat in America. In 2012, Marco partnered with his Brown classmate, Rip to scale Rip Van Wafels. Together, they’ve developed an innovative NON-GMO product line of snack wafels, reduced the sugar content by 40% and grown the business from a dorm room to distribution in 12,000 Starbucks nationwide. In 2016, Marco was featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 List. He has a BA in Economics from Brown University and resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Nick McCoy is a Co-Founder and Managing Director with Whipstitch Capital. In 2001, he co-founded the investment bank Silverwood Partners. In 2009, Mike Burgmaier joined Nick at Silverwood, together they completed nearly forty transactions for clients such as Blake’s All Natural, KeVita, Cherrybrook Kitchen, Spindrift and Otter Creek Brewing Company. In October 2015, they formed Whipstitch.

Jeremy Halpern is a partner and co-chairs and serves as the Director of Business Development for Nutter’s Emerging Companies Group. Jeremy’s practice focuses on emerging companies, private equity, venture capital and angel financing transactions, mergers and acquisitions, executive and team compensation matters, and general start-up support. Serving as the firm’s entrepreneur-in-residence, Jeremy often works on strategy and corporate development matters with companies, investors, and executives in technology, life sciences and the food and beverage industry. Jeremy is an active angel investor and is a member of the board of The Capital Network, a Boston based non-profit serving entrepreneurs seeking high growth capital. Jeremy serves on the Advisory Board and the Executive Education Committee of the MBI Health Program and on the Advisory Board of Pintley, a MassChallenge 2011 finalist company providing marketing solutions to the craft brewers and bars. He continues to serve as a mentor at MassChallenge and LearnLaunch, an expert advisor at the Innovation Hub at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and as a speaker, reviewer, judge or mentor for MIT HackingMedicine, HackingPediatrics, the Mass Tech Transfer Center, the Mass Life Science Center, M2D2, BranchFood and Startup Institute. Previously Jeremy served on the Board and Investment Committee of MassVentures, an early stage venture capital fund funding technology companies in Massachusetts. Jeremy taught entrepreneurial leadership at Tufts University for nine years and cofounded a company in the mobile technology synchronization space. Jeremy received his B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of California, Berkeley, and his J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles.

As a consultant since 1998, Bob Burke provides assistance in bringing natural, organic and specialty products to market across most classes of trade. This includes work in strategic planning, growth strategies, writing sales, marketing and business plans, budgeting, pricing, building distribution, broker selection and management, organizational development, strategic options, branding and trade spending management. He is also the co-author and co-publisher of the Natural Products Field Manual, Fourth Edition and The Sales Manager's Handbook. Prior to consulting, Bob was with Stonyfield Farm Yogurt for 11 years as Vice President, Sales & Corporate Development and Vice President, Marketing & Sales. He has held marketing positions with Colombo, Inc. and Sperry Top-Sider. He received an MBA from Babson College.

Rob has been involved in the specialty food trade for over twenty years, with a proven record of success in global sales, strategic planning, packaging, team-building, new product development, distribution, procurement and import/export management. He has deep and established relationships with buyers in every major distribution channel: specialty retail, grocery, club stores, foodservice, direct to consumer, drug and export. His long-standing sales relationships include retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Williams-Sonoma, Target, Walmart, Publix, The Fresh Market and Dean & DeLuca.

Bruce began his food career in the mid 1970s selling organic cookies, brownies, and desserts to natural and specialty food stores in the New York City area, including Bloomingdales. In 1984, a decade later, he founded B.I.N. Sales and Marketing Inc., represented everyone from major natural product companies to start-up brands including Amy's, Green & Blacks, Health Valley, Organic Valley, Newman's Own and quickly becoming the leading natural products sales & marketing agency on the East Coast. In 2006, B.I.N. was purchased by Advantage Sales and Marketing, a leading national sales and marketing Company based in Irvine, California. In addition to B.I.N. Sales and Marketing Inc., Bruce also co-founded Organic Brands LLC, in 1998. Organic Brands developed the Mediterranean Organic brand, a line of certified organic specialty food products. In 2007, Organic Brands was purchased by United Natural Foods (NYSE: UNFI), the leading distributor of natural products in the U.S.

John has been in the grocery business for over 25 years, he founded Maggiore's Sales & Marketing in 2003, as a consultant and broker to the Natural/Specialty trade, with a primary focus on grocery, dairy and frozen in the Supermarket Channel. Prior to setting out on his own John was the Category Manager of Natural Food for Stop & Shop Supermarkets based in Boston, MA. John pioneered the store with-in-a-store Natural Food departments at Stop & Shop, creating over 150 departments in less than five years. Natural Food sales grew at Stop & Shop from $6 million when John took over responsibility for the department to $67 million when he left. Before John became Category Manager of Natural he had buying responsibilities in numerous categories including Specialty Cheese, Specialty Crackers, Gourmet Coffee, and Specialty Pasta as well as Frozen and Dairy Foods. Currently John is working with some leading manufacturers in the Natural Food channel including Pirate Brands, Justin's, Green Mountain Gringo, Seapoint Farms, R.W. Garcia and Angie's Popcorn, and has worked with other leading companies in the past including Bear Naked Granola, Larabar, Vita Coco and Ian's Natural Foods.

Sabina Gault is the CEO of Konnect, an award-winning communications and marketing agency based in Downtown Los Angeles. A seasoned and passionate PR and marketing practitioner, Sabina’s approach to client service, strategic communications, and measurable results are apparent in Konnect’s rapid rise from a startup to a mid-size agency with an average annual growth rate of 60 percent. Sabina leads a team of dedicated staffers who provide a boutique-level of personal service combined with an adept ability to effectively build brands that has resulted in a long list of legacy clients. As a working mother and the entrepreneur behind a WBENC-certified, women-owned business, Sabina has a passion for the challenges and rewards that stem from successfully balancing family and career. This passion is evident in Konnect’s relationships with brands that serve families and children, as well as its work with clients in the franchise space and the artisanal “better-for- you” food and beverage industry. Sabina is a graduate of Berkeley and currently resides in Long Beach, California with her amazing husband and two children who keep her grounded and contribute to the motivation that drives her success.

Scott Goldsmith is the Founding partner and Vice-President of Business Development for Lancaster Fine Foods. He has grown Specialty Contract Manufacturing Sales from 2 million to 10 million from 2008 to 2016. Prior to Lancaster Fine Foods, Goldsmith was the Owner and Operator of Behrman Chiropractic in Lancaster, PA from 1991 to 2007; specializing in interventional pain management and board certified in manipulation under anesthesia by the Royal College of Physicians. He is married to Kimmie, is a father of 5 grown children, and is an avid fisherman.

For over three years Terry Hope Romero was the Outreach Lead for Food at Kickstarter, advising and educating hundreds of food startups on best practices on the platform. Terry is also a vegan chef and an accomplished author and co-author of 8 cookbooks including bestselling Veganomicon and Salad Samurai, contributes to BUST and VegNews magazines, holds a certificate in Plant Based Nutrition from Cornell University and has given talks and cooking demonstrations across North America, Europe, and Australia.