Beam Suntory hires Heather Boyd to be Managing Director – US RTD. In September, Beam Suntory acquired On The Rocks Premium Cocktails, a rapidly growing premium ready-to-drink cocktail brand, and announced plans to expand market availability and the product range. Boyd will lead that effort. She joins from Acreage Holdings, which grows, processes and dispenses cannabis, where she was chief product and innovation officer.
Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. (DISCUS) hires Amanda Berger, Ph.D. as Vice President of Science. She joins from Porter Novelli in Washington, where she was vp-research, researching and evaluating programs that promote responsible decision making to ensure that they are effective and evidence-based. Before that, she was a principal research scientist at Battelle, a private nonprofit global research and technology development company. At Battelle, she provided research counsel on government education campaigns and programs for the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). She succeeds Dr. Sam Zakhari, who retired earlier this year as head of DISCUS’s Office of Scientific Affairs.