New Lord Hobo CEO Brian Walsh says his goal is to bring stability to the Woburn, Massachusetts-based craft brewery.
Walsh, an industry veteran who most recently helped lead the post-bankruptcy business Smuttynose Brewing Company in New Hampshire, was introduced last Thursday as CEO, taking the reins from founder Daniel Lanigan, who remains a member of the company’s board of directors.
In addition to Walsh’s appointment, the company expanded its eight-member board to include long-time beer industry executive Simon Thorpe and Wendy Nowokunski, a director of private investment firm Valterra Partners, which acquired a stake in Lord Hobo in 2017.
The move followed stories of misconduct at Lord Hobo appearing in posts among the thousands of Instagram stories shared by both Brienne Allan (@ratmagnet) and Embolden Act Advance (@EmboldenActAdvance) from women who have experienced harassment, misogyny and assaults while working in the beer industry. Lanigan was specifically referenced in at least three posts making allegations that he made advances to female employees.
Walsh steps into a brewery that is not only grappling with those issues but one that, like all small brewers, is still trying to find its footing in the ongoing fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down the on-premise channel and at-the-brewery sales for much of 2020.
Last year, Lord Hobo’s volume declined -36%, to 30,075 barrels of beer, according to the Brewers Association’s New Brewer magazine.
Speaking to Brewbound, Walsh said his focus is on fixing the brewery’s foundation. For Lord Hobo employees, that means “an ongoing open-door policy” for them to bring issues directly to Walsh.
“We take this very seriously,” he said of the allegations levied on social media.
In addition to Walsh’s open door, Lord Hobo has set up a confidential phone line and email address for reporting misconduct. Walsh said the company will look into whatever issues are presented to it, although he said anonymous reports have made it difficult to get additional information.
Part of Walsh’s plan to reboot Lord Hobo includes reorganizing the company’s leadership structure with eight department heads, including the human resources manager, reporting directly to him. Those department heads will be assembled from the brewery’s existing workforce, with an eye on gender equity to ensure representation within its leadership team.
Among those leaders will be long-time employee Kate Ballenger, who will continue as head of retail operations and general manager. Walsh believes this will help provide stability within the organization and foster “an open and honest” dialogue with their teams.
Walsh is encouraging employees to report any misconduct to those eight department heads, who will share the information with him and the company’s HR manager.
Lord Hobo is also in the process of implementing a program that would train female sales reps to become wholesaler managers, one that Walsh said was successful at Smuttynose.
“That added value to our company but it also added value to those individuals that wanted to get to the next level, a higher level, and many of them have gone on to be a wholesaler rep and then also field manager and had other people under them,” he said.
For Lord Hobo’s beer business, the foundational repair starts with a focus on the company’s core offerings and portfolio of IPAs, including Boomsauce Double IPA and 617 Hazy IPA, but could extend into sour ales and beyond beer to ready-to-drink offerings and health-and-wellness options.
“If we just stay a beer company, we will probably not be able to meet the goals,” Walsh said. However, if new types of product are added to the mix, they “will really benefit the entire organization.”
Nevertheless, Walsh is focused on the present, which means staying true to its core and reengaging its wholesaler partners via monthly meetings on plans and programs and inventory management.
“We have to get back in touch with our wholesalers, who are now just coming around to getting us back into their planning and programming,” he said. “If you provide value to them every time you go in there, you’re going to get focus.”