The American arm of Scotland-based craft beer maker BrewDog has a new director. Columbus entrepreneur Tanisha Robinson comes to the just-opened Canal Winchester offices of BrewDog after cutting her teeth in the apparel and tech sectors.
Robinson is best known as the founder and former CEO of Print Syndicate, an apparel and home goods company that’s gone viral for its T-shirts depicting Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bernie Sanders and others.
Robinson also co-founded TicketFire, a mobile app that lets people sell and transfer paper event tickets.
“It’s not a question of product,” Robinson says. “I would say I’m an innovation and growth junkie, and BrewDog offers a really, really exciting opportunity to think about growth and innovation, and build a world class company here in the U.S.”
Robinson describes herself as a serial entrepreneur who’s looking forward to taking that that creativity into the exploding craft beer industry.
“Like Rhinegeist in Cincinnati, (which) is wildly creative with their beers, I think that will be the point of differentiation for brewers that are really successful," she says.
Another way to improve the customer experience, Robinson says, is through her new company’s strategy to own and operate their own bars, which will also include beers from other craft brewers.
As in her time in tech, Robinson - who is African-American - enters an industry predominantly run by white men.
“In terms of the future growth opportunities in craft beer, I think it’s important to think about other constituencies that craft beer hasn’t really reached yet, and I think that’s a big, big opportunity from a marketing perspective to make craft beer awesome for women, people of color, and people who are different from the typical straight white dude that it has generally appealed to," Robinson says.
