People

Frank has set up several businesses, and advised dozens more, both inside and outside of drinks. He has a wide understanding of deal structures, launch strategies and effective brand positioning, and helps founders look for and achieve game-changing pivots to drive rapid growth. He has over ten years' experience in drinks, and blogs at frankaboutfood.co.uk

Heidi brings 20 years of expertise in the natural & organic beverage and food categories. As a seasoned brand marketer and innovation strategist, she has led several start-up companies from inception through launch and in-market success. She brings general management expertise combined with a passion and particular focus on lifestyle brand authenticity, consumer and trade marketing connectivity and product innovation development.

As MD, Gareth helps founders sharpen their commercial edge; giving them the freedom and tools to become the most effective leaders they can be as well as developing portfolio companies’ profile with key industry stakeholders. He's also responsible for ensuring that DV maintains its reputation for being at the forefront of industry trends and manages the day-to-day operations of the London-based team as they work to support the current portfolio, bring in exciting new brands and share their expertise globally.

Kamuti Kiteme is an executive, entrepreneur, and thought-leader with 25+ years of experience building early stage ventures and leading Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. At his core, Kamuti is an entrepreneur and builder who is an expert communicator and cultivator of relationships. At DV, Kamuti will help to support and elevate the company's I&D initiatives, as well as creating an ever-better environment for the Pre-Accelerator and diverse-owned main investments to accelerate.

Dan is an entrepreneur with over 10 years' experience at Innocent and Peppersmith. Having worked in both financial and marketing roles and set up his own business, his experience enables him to add value in areas ranging from financial planning and business modelling to trade marketing and sales strategy.

Evis comes to Distill Ventures with almost 20 years of leadership experience in the wine and spirits industry. In his role as operating partner, he will focus on planning and operations for all brands in North America and will work with the existing portfolio companies to accelerate the growth of these founder-led brands in both the spirits and non-alcoholic beverage categories.

Ara Carvallo, an international brand strategist and serial entrepreneur, has over 20 years of experience in the spirits industry. Prior to joining DV, Ara launched many successful projects and consulted for both established spirits brands and startups around the world, using her finance and marketing expertise to help them attain global recognition and accelerate their businesses. She is also a trailblazer when it comes to sustainability, having founded the first-ever zero carbon bar show in the world and done pioneering research on the subject during her graduate studies.

Josh joins Distill Ventures with experience throughout the spirits industry working in beverage program and cocktail development, bar management and most recently on the distribution side with a portfolio of boutique, global spirits producers. He has partnered with founders on their sales and marketing strategies, brand development, training and education. As Commercial Director, he's excited to help the next generation of global spirits innovators find creative ways to generate growth.

Vishal has over 5 years’ experience advising companies on a wide range of investment, commercial and legal matters across VC, PE and M&A. At Distill Ventures, he leads new investments to expand the spirits and non-alcoholic beverage portfolio in Rest of World. He also works with existing portfolio companies to enable brands to scale and realise their full potential.

Charlie leads DV's ROW whiskey portfolio acceleration and whiskey category-leadership programming as he supports a group of distinct, scalable brands around the world, including Stauning, one of Europe’s standout new whiskies from Denmark and Starward, a distinctive Australian whisky exclusively matured in wine barrels. Additionally, he supports the company’s global search strategy as we continue to look for the most exciting founder-led whiskey brands to join DV's portfolio and gain access to the highest calibre support in the industry.

With experience in both creative agency and brand consultancy sides, Zoe has built a deep understanding of how brands work within culture. She’s been helping companies around the world develop great positioning, messaging, design, communications and content which resonate with what’s happening right now and drive commercial objectives. She brings expertise on how founder-led brands create successful growth and is excited to help entrepreneurs create the global drinks brands of the future.

Since 2017, Allie has curated and managed DV’s ongoing lineup of panels and speaking opportunities at some of the leading drinks industry events throughout the world, including Bar Convent Berlin, Bar Convent Brooklyn, Bevnet Live and regular sessions at the annual Tales of the Cocktail. 

She also guides and implements DV’s global education programme, helping to reinforce the company’s position as a thought-leader across multiple categories. She creates an innovative calendar of forward-thinking content, including an ongoing series of white papers that explore key drinks trends and best practices.

Fran comes to Distill Ventures with four years of experience working for start-ups. She has worked across all aspects of finance with a background in banking, music and entertainment. In her work managing DV’s internal finances, she uses her extensive experience in commercial finance, financial reporting, forecasting, analysis and business operations to ensure accurate reporting to internal as well as external stakeholders.

Justin is an experienced brand marketer with a demonstrated history of delivering results through data driven strategies that focus on sound consumer and customer insights. He has honed his expertise in the beverage alcohol industry working within large corporate structures and start-up environments. At Distill Ventures, he partners with portfolio companies to better connect with the consumer; and develop integrated marketing programs that drive growth and increase brand value.

Brad joins Distill Ventures with over 10 years of experience working for both a global industry-leading energy drink company, as well as a start-up canned wine company. Having worked in both finance and operations roles, he has unlocked a keen understanding of how to properly plan and prepare for scalability. At DV Brad helps the North America portfolio accelerate by advising best practice when producing a financial plan as well as analyzing commercial performance.

Holly started her career at Tesco before joining a global research organisation specialising in food and drink retail. There, she worked on a wide range of insight projects for the world’s leading retailers and FMCGs, in fields such as e-commerce and digital, shopper missions, and seasonal events. Her experience gives her a great understanding of changing consumer trends. As Search Manager at Distill Ventures, Holly’s focus will be to find the best new founder-led brands for potential DV investment.

Chris joined Distill Ventures after working for a premium spirits distributor managing a portfolio of brands including Kraken Rum. He has worked across all aspects of finance and operations roles; this experience has given him deep understanding of how companies work and how to best prepare and guide them through rapid growth. At DV Chris helps the portfolio accelerate by advising best practice when producing a financial plan as well as analysing commercial performance.

Alison brings 6+ years of experience in the drinks industry including years at Bacardi Global Brands, as well as an extensive background in the entertainment and marketing sectors. With a focus on team culture & wellness as well as sustainability and eco-friendly brands, Alison supports the DV global office in every way; enabling our teams to find the best new founder-led brands.

Ilaria joins DV after spending over eight years working as a social media manager and creative content producer for e-commerce, arts and lifestyle brands.

Having worked with Made.com supporting the launch of its Italian market and innovative virtual platforms, its European expansion and editorial content creation, Ilaria brings expertise on content localisation, production, management and strategy. She supports the team by helping the portfolio convey their brand messaging, drive conversions, audience engagement and increasing digital brand awareness.

Jules comes to Distill Ventures with 10 years of experience leading full brand portfolio trade, customer and shopper marketing initiatives at Constellation Brands, Bacardi North America and most recently at Campari Group. At Distill Ventures, Jules leads the Trade Marketing advisory for portfolio companies, helping founders scale their businesses in North America.

Sophie works directly with brands to devise, implement and optimise eCommerce strategies for both brand-building and commercial objectives through the companies’ brand websites, Amazon and key eCommerce partners. She identifies online retail best practice and emerging digital trends that can be adopted by the portfolio to deliver the best eCommerce experience for their customers. She also works closely with DV’s team of digital and data specialists to keep the portfolio at the forefront of online purchasing trends as well as support in the search for and continued investment in digitally native drinks brands.

Raquel joins DV after spending six years in the wine industry focused on digital marketing, social media strategy, influencer marketing and DTC e-comm. Prior to her stint in wine she spent time on the agency side focused on content marketing after first starting out as a crime reporter (yes she has many stories to tell!). As a past journalist and seasoned marketer, she thrives on helping brands tell their authentic stories and connecting with their customers in the digital space. At DV, Raquel focuses on helping our portfolio drive growth in e-comm sales in the US, support the development and execution of digital marketing plans and the best digital marketing practices.

Krishen joins DV after graduating from the University of Bath. As Investment Analyst in ROW he supports existing portfolio companies, helping them to scale and realise their full potential. He also supports new investments to expand the spirits and non-alcoholic beverage portfolio in Rest of World. Krishen has previously worked in the VC space on tech and life science investments.

Kar joins Distill Ventures with over seven years of experience in the wine and spirits industry. Having worked across the globe for start ups to mid-size alcohol brands, she brings an inclusive and international approach to the team. With a background in the arts, she also brings a creative streak when it comes to content creation and marketing best practices. As a seasoned digital marketer, she supports DV with strategic brand building, awareness of its programmes, initiatives, and events.

Kamilah joins Distill Ventures with eight years of experience advising companies on inclusive people and organizational strategies. At DV, she leads the Inclusion and Diversity advisory initiatives for DV's Pre-Accelerator as well as portfolio companies and the DV team. She provides best practices to partners when building employee recruiting, hiring and training practices as well as new ways of thinking when connecting to consumer audiences. Kamilah is thrilled to enable a new generation of diverse founders, teams and partners to build sustainable, inclusive and diverse organizations.

With close to a decade of CPG Food & Beverage industry experience, Mo joins DV as e-Commerce Director. Mo has a passion for working with early stage brands to launch and scale their businesses online. He has helped a number of brands reach over a million dollars in online revenue from zero, build out teams and infrastructures that scale from scratch. Mo is a native New Yorker, grew up in Queens and holds a degree from City College of New York where he volunteers as a mentor at their startup incubator helping young entrepreneurs raise money and launch their startup businesses.

With nearly twenty years in the beverage alcohol industry, Scott has worked in retail, importing, and distribution with a focus on identifying and building nascent craft spirit brands. He loves assisting founders in finding the best ways to tell their stories, motivate their salespeople, and educate their partners. Scott holds his WSET Diploma in Wine & Spirits.

Kunal brings 10 years of investing and operating experience in beverage alcohol. At Pernod Ricard he led M&A, Strategy, and Brand Incubation initiatives for the US market. Then, as Finance Director at Winc – a direct-to-consumer, subscription wine startup - he helped lead their IPO in 2021 and developed their Strategic Finance function. Now at Distill Ventures, Kunal leads the company’s investment efforts in North America. Leveraging his deep knowledge of the industry, he seeks to expand DV’s portfolio into new categories and occasions, and partner with founders that are redefining traditional business models and paths-to-consumer.