Eric Skae is a CPG expert with over thirty years of experience working in the space, and has proven to be a food & beverage industry visionary. Beginning his career as a distributor in Orlando, Florida, Skae's resume has developed to include roles such as CEO of Rao's Specialty Food, where he reconstructed staff operations, strengthened buyer relationships, and led the sale of the brand for the original shareholders - the largest in the food & beverage industry in under two years. He later went on to serve as CCO/COO of snack brand Popcornopolis as he worked with the founders and guided the company through a successful sale.

In 2021, Skae announced his role as CEO of Carbone Fine Food, the consumer goods brand offering restaurant-quality premium jarred pasta sauces from the legendary New York City restaurant, Carbone. In this role, Skae helped to shape the long-term growth strategy for the brand and further developed buyer relationships to grow Carbone Fine Food's retailer footprint. In late February 2021, Carbone Fine Food launched its first line of pasta sauces available in three varieties. The brand has grown to include nine different SKUs with more on the horizon.

Amber is the Senior Vice President of Sales Strategy at Siddhi Capital, a leading operationally-focused food & Beverage growth equity firm. She also currently serves on the board of MUD\WTR, an award-winning coffee alternative brand. Prior to joining Siddhi in June 2022, Amber gained strong experience at General Mills, WhiteWave, Danone, and most recently, A Dozen Cousins. This has led to her developing core competencies in areas such as trade marketing, strategic planning, account management, category management, new product launch execution, bottoms-up business development, and strategic partnerships. Other notable brands she has supported during her career include Horizon Organic, International Delight, Silk, SToK, Pillsbury, and Yoplait.

Amber is passionate about challenging the status quo and combines this energy with servant leadership to help those around her maximize their own potential. This includes a strong interest in authenticity and representation – in particular for people of color.

Brandon Casteel is the Vice President of Partnerships for SPINS – he leads the teams responsible for Broker/Distributor/Ingredient Supplier/Co-Manufacturer, and Financial Partnerships for SPINS. He has been at SPINS for 4 years and prior to that had long stints in the Staffing/Recruiting and Telecommunications Industries. He has 5 children and 4 pets and is based in the Atlanta, GA area.

Jim Cummings is a COO & Co-Founder at Ampla, a hyper-growth Series A FinTech building the financial platform for consumer brands. Prior to Ampla, Jim oversaw Strategy & Finance, and was a board observer for Console Group in Brisbane, Australia. In this role, Jim spearheaded strategic initiatives across sales, operations, HR, product, finance, and corporate development. Prior to Console Group, Jim worked for Macquarie Capital in New York and Sydney, where he deployed over $130 million in private equity, venture capital, preferred equity, and mezzanine debt investments. Jim received a bachelor’s degree in Operations Research Engineering with a minor in Finance from Cornell University.

Dan Weckend is the VP of Partnerships at Ampla, a hyper-growth Series A FinTech building the financial platform for consumer brands and providing them access to scalable growth capital. Dan has built his decade-long career in Fintech partnerships at leading companies; most recently at Bench Accounting and Shopify, where he led product partnerships, expanding the business’ suite of embedded financial service offerings to include business lending, money management accounts, and card issuance.

Prior to Shopify he held Director positions at Paysafe and Digital River World Payments (now Worldline) where he was responsible for helping some of the world’s most progressive companies improve their global payment processing through payment conversion optimization and the adoption of local payment methods.