Mario DiFalco

Founding Partner of Illuminate Growth Partners

Mario is a proven leader in food & beverage innovation, known for driving category-defining growth. From startups to global brands, he has led PowerBar, JOYBA Bubble Tea, Keen Footwear, and Del Monte through transformational expansion—building brand equity, unlocking new categories, and scaling distribution.

Seeing a gap in the industry, Mario launched Illuminate Growth Partners to provide senior-level strategic expertise without the high costs and slow ramp-up of large agencies. His consultancy helps food and beverage brands scale faster, with agility and precision.

Bringing a classically trained CPG marketing skillset and an entrepreneurial mindset, Mario works closely with brands to refine growth strategies, develop innovation pipelines, optimize brand positioning, and accelerate go-to-market execution.

Mario has built a reputation as a trusted partner for brands looking to bridge the gap between early traction and sustainable, long-term success.

Kathryn Flouton

Founder of Kathryn Flouton Consulting

Kathryn Flouton brings 20+ years of retail and CPG experience across brick and mortar grocery, direct to consumer and B2B channels. She has deep expertise in building products, product pipelines, brands, and retail merchandising in the natural products and specialty food industry, across all channels. She has spent the last several years consulting with growth stage startups and retailers leading teams in interim/fractional roles focused on change management, growth and strategic business development.

Her prior experience crosses retailers (Trader Joe's, Dean & DeLuca and others) with a variety of CPG brands in DTC and retail channels, private label, food innovation + commercialization, merchandising (traditional and e-commerce). By working at the intersection of brand, DTC e-comm, and retail brick and mortar, these experiences have given Kathryn unique operating expertise that leads to creative problem solving and team growth. She loves building and mentoring teams and supporting founders on their path through the industry. She is privileged to work as a trusted advisor to emerging CPG brands and retailers and supporting the food and beverage world.

Ben Mand

CEO of Yerba Madre (Guayakí)

Ben Mand is CEO of Yerba Madre (Guayakí Yerba Mate). Prior to joining Guayakí, Ben was CEO of Harmless Harvest. At Harmless Harvest, Ben successfully transformed Harmless Harvest by tripling sales, radically streamlined the supply chain, and ultimately transformed an unprofitable business into a profitable and scalable company. Ben also led the successful acquisition of Harmless Harvest by Danone. Perhaps most importantly, Ben’s passion and commitment to the company’s mission-led objectives has resulted in assistance to >38k people in Thailand via Fair For Life initiatives, a transition to >50% regenerative organic farming, conversion to 100% rPET bottles, and bringing Harmless Harvest dramatically closer to its goal of 100% zero-waste.

Over the past 20 years, Ben has worked in various brand marketing and innovation roles at leading companies including General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, and Interbrand. He has made an impact as a change agent, driving improvements in health, sustainability, and social impact while delivering consistent sales and profit growth. Prior to joining Harmless Harvest, Ben oversaw all marketing, innovation and creative strategy for Plum Organics, a leading organic baby food brand. Under Ben’s tenure, the brand quickly accelerated from #3 to #1 in the category.

Ben is a seasoned speaker and has been featured at industry events including SXSW, Natural Products Expo and Advertising Week, speaking about everything from socially-minded business practices to marketing with empathy.

Thuy Nguyen

Category Manager at Thrive Market

Thuy Nguyen is the Frozen and Fresh Category Manager at Thrive Market, an online grocery store that's on a mission to make healthy and sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone. Prior to Thrive, she was the Forager at Good Eggs and focused her time on finding unique and differentiated grocery products to bring onto the platform.

Thuy graduated summa cum laude from New York University and has over 15 years of experience working within all facets of the food industry and supply chain from farmer’s market manager, to wholesale coordinator, to small business owner. Throughout her years working within food companies like Hot Bread Kitchen, FarmBox, and Good Eggs, she found the most joy in discovering small emerging brands and helping them grow. When she isn’t focused on trying the latest innovative ready-to-drink beverage, she spends time baking and thinking about ways to increase representation and diversity in the food world.

Sadie Scheffer

Founder & CEO of Bread SRSLY

After dropping out of MIT, Sadie Scheffer learned the art of gluten-free baking to impress her college crush. Today she is the CEO of Bread SRSLY, makers of delicious gluten-free sourdough bread in Oakland, CA.

Sadie is also the founder of Hire Like A Badass, a program that teaches busy founders how to take the fear out of hiring so they can build their dream team. Outside of her two companies, Sadie is also a volunteer curling instructor!

Minh Tsai

Founder & CEO of Hodo Foods

Minh Tsai is the founder and CEO of Hodo, a taste-driven organic plant-based brand with a longstanding following of chefs and consumers. Manufacturing at the home base in Oakland, California, Hodo supplies nearly 10,000 natural, specialty and conventional retailers from Whole Foods Markets to Target nationally, and nearly 5,000 foodservice locations, from Chipotle to Sweetgreen, commissaries of corporate and university campuses, and Michelin-star restaurants.

In addition to running Hodo Foods, Minh Tsai provides expertise on and leadership for the plant-based category, and is a highly sought after advisor on strategic and operational projects for food start-ups.

Prior to starting Hodo Foods, Minh Tsai worked in finance and management consulting for JP Morgan, Charles Schwab, and Arthur D. Little.

Minh Tsai holds degrees in Asian Studies, Political Science, and Economic Development from Columbia University.

Judy Yee

Clorox

With over two decades in brand management, Judy has journeyed from Fortune 500 CPG companies like Clorox and Nestle to leading healthier food and beverage brands like Earthbound Farm and Tejava Tea. Her passion for growth and innovation work culminated into co-founding K-Zen Beverages in 2018, one of the first cannabis-infused beverage start-ups in the country post-California legalization.