Sierra Nevada has formally promoted Lesley Albright to VP of marketing after she took the reins to the department in late 2022, the company announced.
“Lesley is a special talent who has been impressing people here since Day One,” chief commercial officer Joe Whitney said in a press release.
Albright joined the Chico, California-headquartered craft brewery in November 2020 as director of digital and media and was elevated to the VP of marketing role in September 2022. Albright’s predecessor, Noelle Haley, vacated the role in June 2022 to become chief marketing officer of Guayakí Yerba Mate.
“She has a firm grasp of consumer dynamics and how consumers are changing the way they interact with brands,” Whitney said of Albright in the release. “She gets the enviable role of telling the greatest story never told in the world of beer and I have no doubt she will usher in a new era of growth for Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.”
Before joining Sierra Nevada, Albright spent nearly eight years at global public relations firm Edelman, where her clients included Adobe, Dupont, Delta Dental and Campari America, among others. At Edelman, she led the agency’s San Francisco-area client portfolio to increased revenue (+20%) and increased profit margin (+40%), according to the release.
Albright’s two-decade career also includes time as senior public affairs strategist at URS Corporation, global digital strategy resident for Motorola Solutions, and brand strategist and content developer for Albright Communications, according to her LinkedIn profile. Her work has earned several prestigious advertising awards, including five Cannes Lions.
“We have such a wonderful opportunity to tell the Sierra Nevada story to the world,” Albright said in the release. “I’m proud of what this team is doing to better understand what our customers want, and we have the innovations chops here at Sierra Nevada to meet them with that product. It’s an honor to lead the charge we look to continue to disrupt the industry.”
Last year, Sierra Nevada announced plans to double its beyond-beer business via the construction of a 500,000-barrel facility – dubbed the “Can Do Innovation Center” – at its headquarters in Chico. So far, the company’s forays into beyond beer have included Strainge Beast Hard Kombucha, Hop Splash sparkling hop water, and Tea West hard tea, which was discontinued earlier this month, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights.
In 2022, Sierra Nevada’s full-year dollar sales declined -1%, to $316.3 million, at off-premise retailers tracked by market research firm IRI. The brewery’s off-premise case sales declined -5.4% compared to 2021, according to IRI.
Dollar sales of Hazy Little Thing IPA, the company’s best-selling beer and the No. 3 craft beer overall, increased +3.1%, to $106.2 million; its case sales declined -2% compared to 2021. Hazy Little Thing accounts for 2.24% of all off-premise dollars spent on craft beer, according to IRI.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the 41-year-old craft brewery’s signature offering, declined -9% in dollar sales, to $89.4 million, at off-premise retailers in 2022. It remains the fifth-best selling craft brand, according to IRI.
Sierra Nevada is the third-largest independent craft brewery in the country by volume, according to the Brewers Association (BA), which includes craft breweries producing fewer than 6 million barrels of beer and are not more than 25% owned by beverage-alcohol companies that are not also craft breweries. In 2021, Sierra Nevada’s output declined -1%, to 1,103,160 barrels. It accounts for 4.45% of BA-defined craft volume.