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Sazerac CEO Mark Brown to step down
Mark Brown will step down as CEO and president of Sazerac in July when the company’s chief commercial officer will take over the role.
Buffalo Trace owner Sazerac confirmed the company’s current chief commercial officer, Jake Wenz, would take up the CEO and president position.
New Orleans-headquartered Sazerac said in a statement: “As part of a long-signalled and eight-year succession plan, effective July 1st, 2023, Mark Brown will become the Sazerac Company’s full-time executive chairman and Jake Wenz, currently the company’s chief commercial officer, will become president and CEO.”
Brown got his start in the alcohol sector when he began working for his family’s pub business in the UK in 1971.
In 1976, Brown joined British cider maker HP Bulmer as a salesperson, and became a sales trainer in 1979. He moved to the US in 1980 as the US field sales manager for Bulmer.
From 1981 to 1992 he served as director of new products, national sales manager and, eventually, vice-president of sales and marketing for Sazerac.
Brown joined Brown-Forman in 1992 as senior vice-president and chief operating officer of the Select Brands Group for two years. He spent the next three years as president of Brown-Forman’s Advancing Markets Group, before returning to Sazerac in June 1997 as president and CEO.
Brown holds an MBA from Tulane University in New Orleans, US. He and his wife, Jane, have two sons, Thomas and Sam.
Buffalo Trace Distillery recently expanded its Experimental Collection with a Bourbon made with peated malt.
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