Fat Tire brewers tap spirits executive as new CEO
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A Colorado craft brewery that has been struggling to go from niche to national turned this week to the spirits industry to find its next chief executive.
New Belgium Brewing, which makes Fat Tire Belgian-style ale, announced Monday that Steve Fechheimer will take over the employee-owned company. He had been the chief strategy officer at Beam Suntory, the Illinois-headquartered spirits company that owns Jim Beam Bourbon, Maker's Mark Whiskey and Pinnacle Vodka, among other liquor brands.
“I’m excited and humbled by the opportunity to lead such a wonderful company,” Fechheimer said in a statement. “New Belgium with its incredible history and heritage, has an amazingly bright future."
New Belgium's co-founder and former chief executive, Kim Jordan, served as interim CEO after her original successor, Christine Perich, resigned in November after about a year in the position. Perich is now head of a Denver-based juice company called WTRMLN WTR, short for watermelon water.
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Jordan will continue to serve as the executive chairwoman of New Belgium's board of directors, overseeing long-term strategy.
“We are so excited to welcome (Fechheimer) to New Belgium,” Jordan said in a statement. “His expertise at strategy development and execution in the high-end world of spirits, coupled with our 26 years of solid brewing and branding, is a perfect setup for the kind of dynamic future New Belgium is planning."
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Fechheimer's other past roles include chief operating officer for the environmental organization Sierra Club Green Home and serving as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group and Marakon Associates.
New Belgium also announced the appointment of new chief operating officer, Joe Davis, and a new interim vice president of marketing, Jenn Vervier.
Davis, who joined the brewery in 2013, will continue to serve as New Belgium's general counsel on the legal team.
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Vervier, a New Belgium employee for more than 20 years, previously was the director of strategy and sustainability. She replaces the recently departed Ruairi Twomey, who oversaw the new Voodoo Ranger India pale ale line, second Fat Tire flavor, changes to Tour de Fat and other adjustments to New Belgium's beer lineup.
New Belgium started in a Fort Collins basement in 1991 and still is based here. In 2015, it opened a second brewery in Asheville, N.C., and the operation now is considered the country's fourth-largest craft brewer, distributing nationwide and selling nearly 1 million barrels of beer a year.
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