On Tuesday, the Brewers Affiliation (BA) — a not-for-profit commerce group devoted to small and impartial American craft brewers — introduced that Bart Watson will probably be taking up the function of president and CEO of the group beginning January 6. The information arrives months after present president and CEO Bob Pease gave phrase of his plans to retire in early 2025 after 32 years with the BA.
Watson joined the BA in 2013 following a tenure on the earth of academia, the place he served as a visiting assistant professor on the College of Iowa Division of Political Science, a postdoctoral analysis fellow on the Berkeley Roundtable on the worldwide financial system, and a College of California Berkeley Faculty of Public Well being lecturer. After holding the function of the BA’s chief economist for 11 years, he took on the extra accountability of vice chairman of technique and membership in April 2024. On December 12, the BA board of administrators confirmed that Watson can be stepping as much as the brand new roles throughout a gathering in Atlanta.
“Bart’s in-depth understanding of the craft beer business and panorama and his decade-plus of expertise inside the Brewers Affiliation makes him uniquely poised to step into the president and CEO function on day one with a strategic imaginative and prescient and plan,” board chair Leah Cheston acknowledged within the press launch. “The board of administrators is happy for the subsequent chapter and appears ahead to working with Bart to chart the trail ahead for our members and our business.”
In his new function, Watson will reportedly deal with legislative and regulatory points affecting impartial craft breweries, be a spokesperson for mentioned breweries within the media, handle the event of assets and occasions designed to profit BA members, and help the BA’s continued development as a strategic governing physique.
Admittedly, 2024 has not been the perfect 12 months for the American craft beer business. Because the BA reported in its current article “The 2024 Yr in Beer,” nationwide craft beer manufacturing quantity is predicted to be down by over two p.c by the top of the 12 months. On high of that, 2024 would be the first 12 months because the early aughts that brewery closings outpaced openings.
“Craft has been going by a tough interval and I’m dedicated to discovering methods to assist our members navigate these challenges,” Watson acknowledged within the announcement. “Our members are extremely revolutionary and adaptable entrepreneurs, and I’m able to work with them and for them to help their companies and produce pleasure again to the class.”
Watson’s new function will probably be not like any of the earlier positions he’s held on the BA. On condition that the BA is a commerce group, the perform of its president and CEO is of course extra political than the roles Watson has excelled at previously. Nonetheless, the general outlook is hopeful.
VP Professional Take
“The outdated BA below Bob Pease is dying and the brand new BA below Bart Watson struggles to be born. Now’s the time of takes.
Right here’s mine: this is without doubt one of the greatest strikes the commerce org’s board might have realistically made right here. Since my first time interviewing Watson over a decade in the past, he’s been a clear-eyed advocate for small impartial brewers with out being a delusional zealot in regards to the section’s shortcomings. He’s an uncommonly proficient narrative storyteller for any person with such robust analytical and analysis abilities, and he has hard-earned, extremely deep information of each the American craft brewing panorama and the BA itself. He’ll lean on all these abilities to navigate the org and its constituents by probably the most difficult interval the section has confronted in 20 years.
I’m positive Watson is a superb selection for the technical calls for of the job. I’m much less positive what number of technical calls for there are. The BA is a commerce org, and the perform of its president and chief government is of course extra political than the roles Watson has so competently completed previously. His counterparts on the Beer Institute and the Nationwide Beer Wholesalers Affiliation had appreciable expertise working in that milieu outdoors the brewing business earlier than taking over their present roles. Watson, like Pease earlier than him, is a homegrown expertise. In equity, the latter discovered on the job, incomes recognition as one in all The Hill’s high lobbyists yearly since 2018. Not that that helps the previous; to the extent that there was any low-hanging lobbying fruit for the craft-brewing business, it’s already been plucked. Watson, a one-time political scientist, will be capable of hit the bottom operating sooner than a alternative from outdoors the BA, not to mention the brewing enterprise in toto, however whether or not he can ship the assured strategic management craft brewers want in Washington, D.C. and statehouses throughout the nation on a timeline that the degrowth and miserable headlines name for stays to be seen.
Sure, and: Watson is sharp, humble, and keen to attempt new issues. In these powerful situations, I’d take a frontrunner with a very good perspective, pores and skin within the sport, and nearly unparalleled subject-matter experience over a employed gun with a much bigger trade-group toolkit. Looks as if the BA’s board might have felt likewise.” —Dave Infante, VinePair columnist and contributing editor
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