Bill Sipper

Bill is a marketing genius who is intelligent, well trained, entrepreneurial, and fluent in advertising, guerilla marketing, public relations, and trade marketing. He is a natural sales person whose customers will do almost anything for him. He is a caring and dynamic leader, teacher and mentor, capable of building a winning team and getting people to give the most they can.

• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"Bill is a talented teacher, mentor, and coach. People enjoy being around him and learning from him. His knowledge of the industry is incredibly strong, yet he has an uncanny ability of thinking out of the box and beating the competition to the punch. His knowledge of management, marketing, strategy and sales processes is impressive."

• Tom First
  Co-Founder,
  Nantucket Nectars

Bill Sipper is one of the food and beverage industry's bright stars, especially in the sales and marketing realm. Having held senior level sales and marketing positions at some of the top beverage marketers in the world, Sipper has gained valuable experience and knowledge, most notably in the entrepreneurial beverage arena. Because pioneering beverage brands owned and operated by young, start-up level companies requires a different blend of core competencies and talents than does beverage sales and marketing at big beverage, Sipper should plays an important role in the growth and development of The Switch.

Most recently, Sipper acted as Senior Vice President of Marketing at the Ultimate Juice Co. (A Division of North Castle Partners), from February 2001 to August 2002. At Ultimate Juice, Sipper was responsible for national and regional marketing for this $150 million super premium refrigerated juice company. In the marketing realm, he was responsible for each of the core marketing activities, including consumer marketing, trade marketing, field marketing, guerilla marketing, advertising, public relations, sales forecasting, new product development, pricing, promotion, trade shows, and brand commercialization. While in this post, Sipper strategically restructured the marketing department while eliminating over $300,000 in unnecessary salaries and benefits, internalized Graphic Design and Public Relations functions saving over $800,000 per year, commissioned consumer insights research that contributed to re-positioning the Naked Juice brand, developed three Naked Juice national branding ideas that were implanted nationally, created an 18 month new product development strategy that included 19 new Naked smoothie and fortified smoothies, developed all brand point of sale materials, premiums, truck and visi-cooler graphics, and sales presentations, created a multi-brand new market development strategy.

Prior to serving at Ultimate Juice, Sipper was President and Chief Operating Officer of Tear of the Clouds/Keeper Springs a White Plains, NY based philanthropic beverage company founded by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. While serving in this capacity from September 1999 to February 2001, Sipper was responsible for all aspects of the business. Sipper increased tripled sales in one year while achieving a 37% reduction in projected expenses. He also introduced Keeper Springs in New England and Mid Atlantic markets and secured distribution at large regional chains, as well as implemented a health food strategy gaining distribution at large regional and national stores. Lastly, he negotiated a national relationship with 7-11 and 7-11's preferred wholesaler, McLane.

As Vice President of Fresh Samantha, Inc., Sipper was responsible for the day-to-day sales, marketing, distribution, operations, and strategic planning. While pursuing these managerial functions, Sipper led the company to profitability through a restructuring that ultimately led to the acquisition of Fresh Samantha by Odwalla. (Coca-Cola has since purchased both companies.) At Fresh Samantha, Sipper spearheaded sales increases from $12 million to $38 million, where he managed same store sales increases over 10%, developed and implemented a multi-level training program, successfully expanded distribution into 5 new core regions, revised and updated label graphics and point of sale material, created the Guerilla Marketing program, personally secured distribution in large national chains, and developed the Advertising, Public Relations, and Marketing Plans.

It was while serving as Director of National Sales for Nantucket Nectars (Cambridge, MA) from 1995-1998 where Sipper's position as one of the best entrepreneurial beverage salesman and marketers was cemented. When Sipper arrived at Nantucket, the company was lacking the key sales systems it would require if they were to reach the levels of growth the founders had envisioned. As a result of Sipper's guidance and the creation of professional sales systems, Nantucket Nectars increased sales from $3 million to $65 million in just 3 short years. Cadbury Schweppes recently purchased Nantucket Nectars.

Prior to Nantucket Nectars, Sipper acted as Vice President of Sales and Marketing from 1993 to 1995 for the Chatham Beverage Company, a New York based $75 million beverage distribution division of a $750 million privately held corporation. Before this position, Sipper was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Mootch & Muck, a Brooklyn, NY based distributor of premium beverage brands. Sipper started his beverage career as District/Regional Sales Manager from 1989 to 1991 for Great Brands of Europe, where he expanded sales of Evian and Saratoga Mineral Water.

During his time as a beverage executive, Sipper has created relationships with many of the top retail and distribution groups in the U.S. such as Whole Foods/Fresh Fields/Bread & Circus, Wild Oats, Starbucks, Brueggers Bagels, Einstein's/Noah's Bagels, Barnes & Nobles, Borders Bookstores, Southland 7-11, Circle K, Safeway, Albertson's, Publix, BJ's, Sam's, Costco, and others.

Sipper has been recently featured on several episodes of the TV Food Network's Unwrapped and a PBS documentary The Water Wars and was a recent guest speaker at Columbia University School of Business. He has been quoted in several trade and consumer publications ranging from Beverage World and Brandweek to Playboy.