Holly Adrien is the Natural and Organic Strategy and Innovation Manager for The Kroger Co, the nation’s largest traditional grocer. With a deep background in customer insights, analytics and merchandising, Holly leads development of The Kroger Co’s strategic focus for natural and organic, and is responsible for execution of top activations to meet customer’s needs in natural and organic across the total store. In her role, she has the privilege of collaborating with all Kroger banners and both established and emerging brands to continuously innovate in terms of new items, promotions, and communication to customers. Her passion for natural products started as an opportunity to improve health and performance in athletics, then blossomed when she was responsible for the Baby department for Kroger and recognized the opportunity that existed to provide the best to The Kroger Co. customers!

Carol is the Editor of NOSH, BevNet’s media property focusing on Natural, Healthy, Sustainable and Organic food products. Carol previously worked and consulted for several consumer goods companies, many within the food space. She also was on the marketing team for Whole Foods Market in the North Atlantic region. Prior to focusing on the food industry, Carol worked at several tech companies, including HubSpot, and served as a consumer researcher at AMP Agency. A graduate of Brandeis University in Journalism, Cultural Anthropology and Theater Arts, Carol is passionate about the food, agriculture and beverage industries.

Growing up in Mill Valley, CA, where natural foods were a staple long before it was mainstream, I’ve always been drawn to natural products, local fresh foods, and exploring new and different flavors. I’m especially fortunate that my passion for clean healthy food has not only been a lifestyle, but also the core of my career in the Natural Products industry. While spending the last 20 years as a wife and a mother to our 5 amazing children, I have also had the opportunity to grow with and navigate through the CPG industry, with a primary focus on the Natural Channel. I’ve worked on the Broker side of the business with Acosta/NS Sales, the manufacturer side with Coca-Cola/Odwalla, and the distribution side where my husband and I expanded our local distribution company nationally, to become Whole Foods Market’s #1 DSD distributor in 8 of their 11 regions. It was here, I realized, that helping small businesses launch, grow, and expand into multiple regions and retailers was not only a career, but a calling. Weaving together the unique threads of my early exposure to clean and healthy food, my personal resonance with the natural products industry, and a passion for helping start up brands grow and flourish in this space, it seemed time to start a consulting company and take that approach one step further; to help women owned brands and women entrepreneurs succeed in this male dominated space. Thus, Gather Brands was born!

Jason has over two decades of experience spanning operations, technology, venture capital, and private equity. Jason is the founder of Consumer Ventures™, a venture capital firm focused on investing in and building emerging consumer brands and companies. Before Consumer Ventures™, Jason was the fund manager at CircleUp in San Francisco, through which he invested in dozens of consumer ventures. Prior to CircleUp, Jason spent over eight years at Winona Capital Management, a consumer-focused private equity firm in Chicago with over $300 million under management. Jason graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with an MBA and holds a BSBA and MAS from the University of Denver, where he was an alumni scholar and graduated summa cum laude.

Karen Ivanis-Rogers spent the first 20 years of her career in big and mid-sized CPG where she helped brands like Tylenol, Clorox Bleach, Milk Bone and Nature Made Vitamins dominate the retail shelves of retailers in all classes of trade. Today she co-leads the Albertson’s Growth Accelerator Program. The Growth Accelerator Program’s mission is to accelerate the growth of select emerging consumer brands by providing distribution, unparalleled merchandising resources and analytics to increase brand awareness, sales and velocities. These emerging brands grow in Albertsons and the marketplace follows. Karen participates in the prospecting and selection of new brands, she leads the operations team that supports portfolio companies and acts as a problem solver, strategic thinker and connector to emerging entrepreneurs. Karen lives in the Oakland Hills with her husband.

After a nearly two-decade career in finance, Matt launched RIND, a better-for-you snack brand focused on whole fruit nutrition, in 2017. Prior to RIND, Matt spent 20 years in investment research at Baron Capital where he covered consumer growth stocks. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.

Ibraheem Basir is the founder and CEO of A Dozen Cousins, a natural food brand that makes convenient meals and side dishes inspired by traditional Creole, Caribbean and Latin American recipes. The brand is inspired by his childhood growing up in the culinary melting pot of Brooklyn and is named after his daughter and her 11 cousins. Prior to launching A Dozen Cousins, Ibraheem obtained his MBA from the Wharton School of Business and served as a Marketing Manager on a number of natural food brands including Larabar and Annie's Organic.

Adrianne DeLuca is a reporter for BevNET and NOSH where she covers a range of industry-related topics with a specific interest in new, sustainable innovations, regulatory and legal matters as well as the intricacies of the supply chain. Adrianne is a journalism and political science graduate of Elon University, and has previously written for various local and digital publications.