Learning from the Entrepreneurial and Start-Up Culture: Innovate Faster or Stand to be Disrupted

Nick Desai has been the Chairman and CEO of Snack It Forward since 2013. Snack It Forward, a better-for-you snack company with a focus on plant-basedSnacks, boasts a portfolio of beloved brands including World Peas™ and Sunkist®Snacks. The World Peas™ mission: to help mainstream America eat better by creating “junk food” tasting snacks with more substance. In 2018, World Peas™ launched Peatos®, a crunchy puffed snack that is a new twist on an American classic, with 4 grams of plant-based protein and 3 grams of fiber per delicious serving. Peatos®, typically found in the produce section, are currently available at over 4000 stores nationwide including every store under the Kroger banner as well as Vons, Pavilions and Albertson. In 2016, Desai led the acquisition of World Peas™, a brand focused on premium, better-for-you pulse based (peas, favas, lentils) snacks, available nationally at retailers such as Whole Foods, Target, and Sprouts. Desai spent the next two years leading the formulation of the revolutionary Peatos®snack which includes significant proprietary technology centered around extruding high protein raw materials.Desai entered the food and consumer space in 2011 by leading the acquisition of Energy Club LLC, a snack food manufacturer based in Los Angeles. Before dedicating his career to the snack industry, Desai’s experience spans an extensive background of over twenty-five years of operations, private equity/investment banking, and law. He started his career as an attorney in the entertainment industry and soon migrated into investment banking and after some time as a Vice President and top dealmaker at KPMG Corporate Finance. He also later became a Managing Director at FocalPoint Partners. In 2008, he moved to the private-equity side of the business as a Managing Director at Shackleton Equity Partners, a private-equity firm focused on the lower middle market. Desai has a JD/MBA from Loyola Marymount University, and was a UC Regents Scholar at the University of California, Irvine. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and four children.

In his role as President of Beyond Beer at Anheuser-Busch, Fabricio Zonzini leads a dedicated team focused on offering more choices that bring even more people together. Zonzini works to leverage A-B’s internal strengths and capabilities to drive growth and embrace a people-first approach to innovation that delivers what consumers want across a range of occasions and trends. In the last year, his team has launched new, industry leading products that are on the pulse of what today’s consumers are demanding: cocktail-inspired hard seltzers, high-quality wine and spirts to go, and low-and no-alcohol beverages. With nearly 20 years of experience at A-B, Zonzini is driven by a passion for creating meaningful experiences and succeeding beyond expectations to shape the future of this industry.