Newly appointed Duvel USA president Seraf De Smedt and members of the company’s leadership team discussed the path forward today nearly five months after the revelation of a toxic work environment led to leadership changes at the top of Boulevard Brewing Company.
“We’ve focused a lot the last few months on collaboration and really having transparent and honest conversations,” vice president of communication and culture Julie Weeks told Brewbound. “I’d say that that’s all been working, especially with the addition of Stephanie [Walker] as our new HR director. People are coming forward if they have topics they want to talk through.”
De Smedt’s appointment as the president of Duvel USA — the parent company of Kansas City, Missouri-headquartered Boulevard and Cooperstown, New York-headquartered Brewery Ommegang — was announced today. De Smedt, who joined Duvel Moortgat in December 2013 as chief financial and administration officer, will spend about a quarter of his time in the U.S. His primary point person will be Duvel USA executive vice president of sales and marketing Bobby Dykstra.
After coming back to lead the company in late January, Boulevard founder John McDonald will return to retirement. McDonald first retired after selling the brewery he founded in 1989 to Duvel Moortgat NV in 2013.
“I want to thank him again, very warmly for having done so at a crucial time,” De Smedt said of McDonald. “It was always clear that that wasn’t meant to be for a long period of time, and so we just felt from where we are internally that this was an appropriate time to move forward in this way.”
McDonald said De Smedt possesses “a really great business mind.”
“I think he listens well and is interested in learning even more about the U.S. business, but I think we have a very strong management team here already, and I think Seraf will be a great addition to that team,” he said, adding that De Smedt’s connection to Duvel Moortgat headquarters could shore up ties between the two business units.
“Maybe in times past, the connection between the U.S. business and Belgium wasn’t as strong, maybe as it should have been, as it could have been,” McDonald continued. “So, we’re really looking forward to having Seraf’s guidance and all he brings to the table, which is a lot.”
McDonald returned to helm the company after former president Jeff Krum resigned as several former employees, all women, shared that the company ignored and sometimes stifled victims of sexual harassment and assault. Those accusations led to the termination of the company’s former chief financial officer and the resignation of VP of marketing Natalie Gershon. The company hired an external HR firm to investigate harassment claims, which led to the termination of three more employees in March.
HR firm FineLine concluded that “harassment and bad behaviors did occur” at Boulevard, and recommended that the company formalize its hiring process, and hold training sessions to establish “clear definitions of what is and is not proper conduct.”
“We will always make sure that we — everybody throughout the company — adhere strictly to professional, ethical conduct and if and when in the future, whenever a problem would arise, it would be dealt with swiftly and decisively,” De Smedt said.
Duvel USA’s leadership transition comes as the rest of the beer industry grapples with the fallout from the sharing of more than 1,000 accounts of sexual harassment, assault and discrimination on social media — first in the Instagram account of Notch Brewing production manager Brienne Allan (@ratmagnet) and now on @EmboldenActAdvance, an account run by a group of anonymous industry women.
Similarly, the situation at Boulevard also came to light on social media, when a former employee shared her experience of pregnancy discrimination during her time at the company on a discussion forum for beer industry employees on Reddit. That led to other women coming forward, sharing instances of harassment and assault.
Several other breweries that were called out for misconduct in recent weeks have followed similar paths to Boulevard, with investigations by external HR firms, employee training and, in some cases, high-profile terminations or resignations, including Modern Times founder and CEO Jacob McKean, Tired Hands founder Jean Broillet and most of the ownership team of Wormtown Brewery.
Boulevard has detailed its progress on a dedicated page, “Commitment to Change,” on its website. A steering committee of cross-functional leaders from Boulevard and Ommegang has taken the helm to navigate the company moving forward, including:
- Dykstra, executive vice president of sales and marketing;
- Weeks, vice president of communications and culture;
- Rick DeBar, general manager of Brewery Ommegang;
- Steven Pauwels, brewmaster of Boulevard;
- Dali Grabar, director of engineering for Boulevard;
- Stephanie Walker, director of human resources.
“We really do feel like we have a solid focus that really makes sure that we’re not missing any part of the business,” said Weeks, who returned to Duvel USA in March after nearly three years at other organizations. She previously served as Boulevard’s marketing and communications manager from 2010-2018.
“Obviously, Boulevard and Duvel USA and Brewery Ommegang have always meant a great deal to me,” she said. “I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t feel really good about our future and where we want to see our teams grow as a company.”
Dykstra added that the company has sought feedback from employees at all levels.
“As we’ve sort of flattened out our team and built this very inclusive steering team for all of our departments to increase communication, we’ve tapped a number of leaders to really step up throughout the process,” he said. “We have so many people that have stepped up during this time, so we’ve really seen great, great results from that, and I just think it’s really improved our culture. People feel like they’re very much a part of our success.”
In addition to engaging with employees, Boulevard has received positive feedback from both the local community and its wholesaler and retailer partners, Weeks and Dykstra said.
“We’ve had great support from our retailer partners and our distributors as we get primed for 2022 planning,” Dykstra said. “We’ve had some really nice engagement, so we’ve been very pleased with our partnerships.”
De Smedt added that Duvel USA’s leadership team is “very confident” about its plans for both Boulevard and Ommegang in “an increasingly competitive and complex U.S. craft industry.”
“What we will seek to do is find the appropriate balance of putting forward our very strong and high quality beers, both by Boulevard and by Ommegang,” he said. “We’ve ventured not too long ago, middle of last year, into hard seltzer with Quirk at Boulevard, and obviously will adapt continuously to this fast-changing industry, and we’re confident about our plans for this year, working on our plans for next year and beyond.”
De Smedt’s appointment as Duvel USA president, however, does not bring about any changes at Paso Robles, California-based Firestone Walker Brewing, which Duvel Moortgat acquired in 2015. Firestone Walker continues to operate independently from the rest of Duvel USA.
“The two organizations know one another, can exchange thoughts and ideas, but the geographical focus of these businesses is also very different,” De Smedt said. “The U.S. is a large piece of territory to cover. And so we’re fully confident that we currently have the right setup with David Walker and his team focusing squarely on Firestone Walker and me, Bobby and the broader leadership team focusing on Boulevard, Ommegang and our imports.”
Last year, the three breweries’ combined output declined 11%, to 628,744 barrels, making them the country’s fourth-largest craft brewing entity by volume, according to the Brewers Association’s May/June issue of The New Brewer.