United States
I've worked the trunk of the car, the cooler door, the back bar, and the boardroom. That's not a metaphor. That's 14 years inside the three-tier system. I've seen the rot from every angle. I know what's breaking before the founder can name it. You're the founder. The chain conversations are stalling. The distributor is coasting on the signature. The slot you fought for got pulled because nobody held the rep accountable. The brand is starving for attention because you're the one supposed to be in the field, and you're stuck in front of a laptop instead. You don't have a VP of Sales. You probably can't justify hiring one. A real one runs $200,000-plus all-in by the time you add benefits and ramp time, and that's before you find out whether the hire was right. That's the gap I fill. Pipeline Autopsy delivers VP-level commercial leadership on a fractional basis. Chain and national account strategy. Distributor accountability at the commercial level, not just back-office tracking. Route-to-market design. Retail and on-premise execution. The work a senior commercial lead would own, sized for a brand that is not ready to add the salary. The credential: distributor at High Country, RNDC, and Breakthru. Breakthru was the national accounts seat, launching in Walmart, Target, Kroger, Safeway/Albertsons, Sprouts, and Sam's Club. Supplier at Oskar Blues and Tivoli/Outlaw Light Beer, including the launch team that took Oskar Blues to all 50 states. Beer, wine, spirits. Ten years managing bar floors before any of it. Two tracks, one operator. Fractional commercial consulting. VP-level chain account, distributor, and route-to-market leadership for brands that need senior execution without the full-time hire. The 90-Day Surgical Sprint. Diagnose. Build. Run. For founders buried in back-office rot, the operational side that compounds quietly and kills brands that should be winning. Working infrastructure by Day 90, owned by you. Hours back every week to spend in the field. I work with two, maybe three brands at a time. Quality-first, integrity-first. No corner-cutting on sourcing or ethics. When the capacity is full, it's full. Free 60-minute Pipeline Triage Call. No strings. We figure out where you're actually bleeding before anyone tries to fix it. DM me, or email: [email protected]
Contract VP of Sales. Responsible for full sales infrastructure, market launches in Minnesota and Florida, distributor relationship management, and brand-building from the ground up.
Fractional back-office partner for skeleton-crew alc-bev and CPG brands.I take the operational work off the founder's plate - distributor follow-up, depletion tracking, sample logs, CRM hygiene, inbox triage, reorder cadence - so the founder gets back in the field.Also building AI Back Office systems for brands ready to move from fractional human hours to recurring infrastructure.
National accounts coverage across grocery, big box, and regional chains. Built an understanding of how chain retail actually operates from the inside: buyer cadences, promotional structures, shelf set dynamics, and depletion reporting. Knowing how national and big-box retail makes decisions changes how a brand should be pitching, pricing, and programming. That knowledge sits behind every distribution diagnostic Pipeline Autopsy runs today.
Sales and distribution management for an early-stage brand building market presence. Got distribution established from the ground up: initial placements, distributor relationship management, and the operational foundation a young brand needs to get on shelf and stay there. Early-stage brands are a different problem than scaling brands. This engagement sharpened the diagnostic for both.