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Pat Brown, CEO of Bloomington-based Oliver Winery, took on a new challenge last year when he left the consumer products industry after more than 30 years and moved to Indiana’s largest winemaker.
Brown, who previously held multiple positions for London-based Unilever and New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, joined Oliver Winery in July.
Oliver Winery’s roots began in the 1960s as a hobby of Indiana University law professor William Oliver. The winery opened in 1972, a year after a bill permitting small wineries in Indiana passed in the Legislature.
Today, Oliver Winery is one of the 30 largest wineries in the country, has four production facilities at its Bloomington campus and ships wines to 43 states across the country. In 2021, the winery started a partnership with NexPhase Capital to help the brand scale up production and growth.
Brown is just the third CEO in Oliver Winery’s 52-year history, and he said his three primary goals over the next five years are to continue to increase the winery’s standing and visibility in the marketplace, increase capabilities in the company’s production facilities and continue adding talent to the company’s team of 65 employees.
“My goal is, let’s have another 50 years,” he said. “How do we set ourselves up to keep the foundation and build on it? And there’s another 50, 100 years in this business or more.”
Brown sat down with IBJ recently to talk about his career path and the opportunities he sees for Oliver Winery’s continued growth. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What attracted you to leading Oliver Winery and what made it an intriguing career switch for you?
They came calling, and I was like, well, it’s wine and spirits, and I don’t really know anything about that. But the more they showed me, the more I was interested. Gosh, these are really good-looking products. Gosh, their sales are really good. Gosh, their capabilities are unbelievable. Gosh, they look great.
And it was a company that really didn’t need to fix anything. Not that growing is easy, but that was the one thing you concentrate on. How do you scale this thing from where we’re at to where we want to be? That was the attractive part. I see a lot of potential and upside in the business and brand.
What has been the most interesting part of working in the consumer products industry that produces items that people both need and want?
I’ve always been amazed at what works and what doesn’t work, and then looking back and saying, ‘Oh, OK, that’s why it worked,’ or, ‘That’s why it didn’t work.’ That’s been a really, really fascinating part of it. And then seeing how brands grow. Some brands grow through really good execution in the market with retailers at the shelf.
There’s a lot of different ways to win. There’s a lot of different ways to lose, too. The other interesting thing is, there’s not one formula for winning in the marketplace.
What have you learned about innovation in wine-making at Oliver?
What I like about this place is the speed of innovation. We get a meeting with a buyer at Walmart. He can say, ‘We’re interested in XYZ in eight weeks.’ I can show him concepts, branding and I can have liquid from [Vice President of Winemaking Rob Warren] made up so we can sample it. They can say, ‘Yes, I like this. No, I don’t like that.’ Then we adjust. We can launch a lot quicker than some of our competitors. We don’t have a lot of layers to go through as far as decision-making, so we’re really fast from a decision-making standpoint, which is good.
What do you like most about a new challenge and learning new things?
I’ve lived in 12 different places, and I’ve worked on 50 different brands. In my DNA, I need to be learning something different to stay engaged and motivated and driven. I could never be a dentist for 30-40 years or an accountant. I like the variety of it and the newness of the challenge of just learning something new and engaging with a new team.
What has been the biggest change in moving to the wine business?
The regulatory environment and the three-tier system [of producers, distributors and retailers]. A lot of things are similar. It’s still a consumer product. A lot of things are very similar or exactly the same, but the regulatory environment and the three-tier system is much different than anything I’ve been associated with. Having someone between you and the retailer, I’m not used to that. What you can’t do is also what I’m learning.
How would you describe your leadership style?
I’m pretty direct. I don’t have high-highs. I don’t have low-lows. I’ve seen so much that nothing really panics me. When you see something crash, I’ve learned not to react right away and to step back and really kind of think things through, gather data, gather insights and be thoughtful about how you move forward. I don’t have knee-jerk reactions to anything.
What I like about this, too, is not only consumer products but the wine business and the winery here. It’s a team sport. It’s not one person or one group really driving everything. You’ve got to set a longer-term vision for people to understand what they’re doing today and how it connects to where I want to go.
What advantages does Oliver Winery have by being one of thefew large-scale wineries in the Midwest?
Everybody’s on the West Coast, and you’ve got all this population over here and in the Northeast [and] Southeast that’s really, really far away from California. Wouldn’t it be prudent to have a business that was closer to where the population center was? I think it’s a really, really good location. We get on I-70 and we can go west; we can go east. We can head up to Chicago. We can go down to the Southeast. We’re one day away from most markets.
From that perspective, Indiana is a great place to do business. If you’re out in California, out on the West Coast, you’re just another one of 1,000. We’re one of very few where we are, and our model is just different.
Have you picked a favorite Oliverwine yet?
I don’t know if I have a favorite-favorite yet. We’ve got 35 different types of wines. It’s kind of hard to pick a favorite kid.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I’ve always been a big outdoor guy. I grew up in the Midwest. A lot of fishing, duck hunting, traveling. I do a lot of traveling. I got the privilege of living in Australia for three years. I spent three weeks over in Africa. I spent two weeks up in Asia and China. I spent a week in Japan. Worked and traveled in New Zealand multiple times. Spent a month in Fiji on the way back home. I think everywhere but the Middle East I’ve been.
You played college football at the University of Richmond. Do you still follow college football?
My dream would be to follow [ESPN’s college football Game Day] around every Saturday wherever they are, wherever the big game is. Get an RV for 10 weeks and just go to each Game Day. I’d like to go to a big game every weekend. It’s the tailgating. It’s the pregame stuff.•
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