New Belgium President Christine Perich Becomes CEO

Just announced today, New Belgium Brewing‘s current President and Chief Operating Officer has been named CEO as Co-Founder Kim Jordan moves solely into the role of Executive Chair of the Brewery’s Board of Directors.

Perich’s new role is said to focus on short term strategy, leading the executive team, industry leadership and running day-to-day operations. Perich first joined New Belgium in 2000 as Controller, and has served as COO since 2008.

“New Belgium Brewing has been my life’s work and I plan to continue in a very active role as Executive Chair of the Board of Directors,” said Jordan. “With Christine’s years of experience as CFO, COO and President, she is abundantly qualified to step into this position allowing me to focus on long-term strategy and vision. I have complete faith in her ability. We’re excited for this next chapter in our collective history.”

What does this mean for the company? Well Perich was a huge part of helping with transitioning the company to an employee owned ESOP back in 2013 and has been with the company for 15 years so we don’t expect any major changes. I think the bigger trend is that we’re seeing some of these founders of larger breweries beginning to transition out of day-to-day operations roles and focus on bigger picture initiatives for the industry as a whole.

Just last month Dick Cantwell, who co-founded Elysian, joined the Brewers Association in the role of Quality Ambassador after Elysian was sold to AB-InBev. While Jordan’s move doesn’t directly correlate, Jordan has been extremely active serving as a leading voice for the craft beer industry as a whole and it seems that this move would free up more opportunities for her to continue guiding New Belgium while also opening up greater opportunities to support the industry, again all speculation.