Bill Lumsden begins training his successor
Glenmorangie’s Dr Bill Lumsden has confirmed he is training up the firm’s head of maturing whisky stocks to be his successor, but insists he has no plans to leave any time soon.
Dr Bill Lumsden is not planning on retiring from Glenmorangie just yet, but has started training his heir, Brendan McCorranBrendan McCarron joined Glenmorangie from Diageo in 2014, and following a three-year search for the right candidate to eventually succeed Lumsden was chosen as the best potential person for the job.
Speaking to The Spirits Business, Lumsden said: “We recruited Brendan about a year-and-a-half ago and in time if it all works out, he will succeed myself – but I am not planning on going anywhere any time soon.
“In order to make sure whoever takes over from me has a real sense of the whisky we are looking at a 10-year period of training.”
He continued to explain McCarron is currently focusing on bettering the “sensory and analytical” aspects of the job, as his experience is strongly within malt distilling.
Future focus will also be put on presentation skills, public speaking, media and PR training.
Brendan McCarron currently holds the position of head of maturing whisky stocks at Glenmorangie (photo: LinkedIn)“We said we just aren’t going to get somebody who’s right for the job just now, but it’s taken three years to get the right person.
“Brendan applied at the 11th hour during the second or third time we outlined the job specification and it just happened I knew him anyway; I saw his name and said ‘that’s our guy’, and it turned out he was.
“We looked at candidates who had just graduated, but that wasn’t really quite right – we wanted someone with genuine experience.
“I really want to raise Brendan’s profile in the industry.”
In October, Glenmorangie launched limited edition A Midwinter Night’s Dram especially for the Christmas period.
Furthermore, earlier this year the company revealed a packaging makeover for its extra-matured whiskies, including Lasanta, Quinta Ruban and Nectar D’Or, shortly after launching Glenmorangie’s Legends Collection in travel retail.
