2026 NATURALLY RISING NORCAL PITCH SLAM
Video by A4B Creative
2026
2026 Naturally Rising NorCal Pitch Slam
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Mill Valley Community Center
One part pitch competition. One part community celebration. Naturally Rising is our premier event of the year!
Naturally Rising NorCal is more than just a competition — it’s a celebration of innovation, entrepreneurship, and community, and a gathering to bring together members from across Northern California.
2026 Event Sponsors
Contributing Sponsors
Reception Sponsors
2026 Winners
2026 Finalists
Meet the 2026 Naturally Rising Judges
Sana Javeri Kadri
Founder & CEO at Diaspora Spice Co.
Born and raised in Mumbai in a big, mixed-up Muslim–Jain–Hindu family where food was the great unifier, Sana has been immersed in the food world since her teens. Over the years, she has worn many hats: line cook, farmworker, food photographer, marketing consultant, CSA manager--before ultimately stepping into the role of spice sourcer turned CEO.
She founded Diaspora Co. in 2017 with a bold vision and a shoestring budget. Since then, the company has grown exponentially. Today, it partners with over 140 regenerative farms across India and Sri Lanka, has paid more than $2.5 million directly to farm partners over the past 6.5 years, and offers 25 single-origin spices alongside 12 bestselling blends. With over 200,000 customers globally and products stocked in more than 525 retail stores across the US and UK, Diaspora Co. is reshaping the spice trade one fair, flavorful, transparently sourced spice at a time.
Sana is also the co-author of the Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook, releasing March 3, 2026, further extending her mission to bring deeply sourced flavor and farmer-forward storytelling into home kitchens.
She currently splits her time between Mumbai and Menlo Park, continuing to advocate for a food system that centers farmers, flavor, and equity at its foundation.
Deb Luster
Founding Team and CIO, Goodles
Co-Founder, Churchill Brands
Ms. Luster is a serial social impact entrepreneur and has been in the CPG industry since 1990 when she was on the founding team and the first President of Annie’s (now a $1 billion company owned by General Mills). She has helped launch dozens of mission-based companies, PR campaigns, and product lines; written three children’s books; and established numerous companies, including two publishing companies, a food packaging technology company, a product and service consulting company, a food consulting company, and three natural food companies. She has been on the founding team of or owner of many consumer product companies including Goodles, Can Do Kid, and Club Kokomo with Beach Boys Mike Love.
Ms. Luster is a public speaker, teacher, and podcast guest many times over has been featured over the years in numerous articles, including the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Working Women, Inc., People, Enterprising Women Magazine, Forbes, Business Ethics Magazine, NewsWeek, and Success magazine, and has been on NBC, CBS, and ABC News spots.
Ms. Luster has three grown children and lives in Mill Valley.
Ben Mand
CEO, Yerba Madre
As CEO, Ben is the driving force behind Yerba Madre’s regenerative mission, leading initiatives to certify more of their products and ingredients to the ROC Gold level, conserve and restore the Atlantic Forest, and improve the livelihoods of producers and harvesters. Previously, as the CEO of Harmless Harvest, Ben restructured the company’s supply chain, achieving 100% zero waste, converting to 100% rPET bottles, and implemented regenerative ag practices across 50% of their farms. Prior to Harmless Harvest, Ben worked in various brand marketing and innovation roles at leading companies including Plum Organics, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, and Interbrand.
Scott Potter
Managing Partner, San Francisco Equity Partners
Scott is the Managing Partner of San Francisco Equity Partners, a Private Equity firm focused on control investments across the consumer value chain.
Scott currently serves as Chairman of Jane Iredale, BruMate and SV Labs and serves on the board of directors of Brazi Bites, Rustic Bakery, Agility Retail Group and Xceed Foodservice Group. Scott previously served on the boards of directors of Method Products, Japonesque, Yes To, ICU Eyewear and Red Monkey Foods, among other private and public companies.
Scott holds a JD from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law and a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a member of Cal’s Division I soccer team
Raena Wilson
Product & Merchandising Coordinator, Good Earth Natural Foods
With over 15 years of experience in the organic and specialty foods industry, Raena is a passionate advocate for organic farming and food production, highlighting both the integrity and sustainability of the organic system at every opportunity. Driven by a deep commitment to supporting small farms and producers, her work at Good Earth Natural Foods is focused on empowering these producers and amplifying their stories, with the hopes of creating a more reciprocal food system. Beyond her professional work, Raena is also a ceramic artist, finding creative inspiration in the woods where she lives. In her "spare" time, she is the founder and creator behind a line of organic, tallow-based skincare with a goal of keeping her business small, local, and community-minded.
Matthew Youngblood
Co-Founding Partner, Trinity Brand Group
Matthew Youngblood is a Founding Partner and Executive Director of Trinity Brand Group, a brand strategy and packaging design firm based in Berkeley, CA with locations in Chicago and Dublin, Ireland. Prior to starting Trinity in 2005, Matthew was a Client Managing Director at Landor Associates in San Francisco.
A specialist in creative strategy, branding, identity, packaging design and communications, Matthew has deep expertise in consumer packaged goods, alcohol beverage, better-for-you products and technology brands for clients such as Albertsons/Safeway, Corona, Quantum Health and Symantec. Matthew has also been working with lifestyle brands including cannabis.
As a speaker and a writer, Matthew has developed a strong voice on the relevance of brand strategy and design and is deeply committed to helping new and existing brands realize their potential.
Matthew graduated from the University of Iowa after growing up in Kansas City where he came to appreciate straight shooters, hard work and BBQ.
Jennifer Mason McLaughlin
Founder & Co-Owner, Indie Inked Solutions
Jennifer is the Founder and CEO of Indie Ink Solutions and has spent more than two decades at the intersection of packaging, operations, and growth within the CPG industry. She believes packaging is not just a container for a product, but a powerful driver of growth that influences retail performance, supply chain efficiency, capital investment, sustainability, and long term scalability.
Through Indie Ink Solutions, Jennifer partners with food and beverage companies to build packaging systems that support scalable growth. Her work extends beyond specifications into vendor strategy, co manufacturing alignment, and supply chain optimization. She helps brands reduce operational friction and build infrastructure that supports expansion into new retail channels.
Jennifer is passionate about sustainable packaging and practical solutions that balance environmental responsibility with operational reality. She advises founders and executive teams with both strategic clarity and hands-on execution.
She earned her B.S. in Physiology from UC Davis, where she rowed on the women’s crew team.
SPEAKERS
Lisa Curtis
Founder & CEO, Kuli Kuli Foods
Lisa Curtis is Founder & CEO of Kuli Kuli Foods, the first brand to introduce moringa to the US market. Launched after her Peace Corps service in Niger, Kuli Kuli is a Certified B Corp selling superfood powders, and gummies in 11,000 stores, while supporting women farmers globally. Previously, Lisa managed clean energy investments at Mosaic and authored political briefings in the White House. Lisa is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and an Inc. Top 100 Female Founder.
Albert Straus
Founder & Executive Chair, Straus Family Creamery
Albert Straus, honored in 2025 with the Organic Trade Association’s Organic Lifetime Achievement Award, is a pioneering force in sustainable organic dairy farming. A second-generation farmer, he has spent more than three decades producing award-winning organic dairy products while transforming the food system through ecological practices, farm viability, community preservation, and climate innovation. In 1994, he transitioned his family’s Straus Dairy Farm to become the first certified organic dairy west of the Mississippi and founded Straus Family Creamery, the nation’s first 100% certified organic creamery. On the farm, he was among the first in California to install a methane digester and the first to develop a carbon farm plan on a U.S. dairy. Today, Straus Dairy Farm is advancing a carbon-neutral organic dairy farming model, aiming for net-neutral emissions—including a 90% reduction in methane from both manure and enteric sources—across all 13 of Straus Family Creamery’s supplying farms by 2030.
In 2024, in recognition of his groundbreaking work in sustainable dairy, Albert represented U.S. organic dairy at the International Dairy Federation’s World Dairy Summit in Paris, France, where he joined global leaders in signing the Global Dairy Sustainability Declaration, calling for bold, coordinated climate action and regenerative farming worldwide.
Named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Albert continues to lead with a visionary, farmer-first approach to building a regenerative food and agriculture system.
Kristel Corson
Chief Revenue Officer, Adams Group
Kristel Corson is the Chief Revenue Officer at Adams Group, a fifth-generation, family-owned food company crafting with integrity from seed to shelf. She leads the company’s growth strategy including scaling its specialty ingredient business and driving consumer expansion through Marianne’s line of pantry essentials.
A maverick in the consumer industry with nearly 30 years of experience, Kristel has held leadership roles at Traditional Medicinals, Clover Sonoma, Clif Bar & Co., Jamba Juice, and LeapFrog, where she consistently propelled brand growth, innovation, and consumer engagement. She also serves on the board of Naturally NorCal and is active in One Step Closer 2 (OSC2), both supporting the natural product industry and brands.
A graduate of San Francisco State University, Kristel lives in Sonoma County with her husband and two children.
Blair Kellison
Board Member and Advisor
Blair’s passion is helping founders and their purpose driven companies reach their full potential through best practices and a culture of kindness.
Blair has spent 25 years in the natural products industry as a CEO and board member.
He was the CEO of Traditional Medicinals for 14 years during which he and his team catapulted an intensely mission driven company into the second largest bagged tea company in North America with distribution in 70,000 retail outlets.
Blair has been the first non-founder CEO of five organizations, each time partnering with the founder and leveraging his experiences to transition to an executive team, best practices run organization. He builds and then scales company cultures centered on kindness, purpose and passion.
He currently sits on the board of several purpose driven wellness companies including Sambazon Acai, Gimme Seaweed, Straus Family Creamery, and Urban Remedy.
Before entering the Health and Wellness industry, Blair spent nine years as a CPA at E&Y, received an MBA from Chicago Booth, and subsequently spent four years as a Brand Manager at Nestle, USA.
Brandie Miller
Founder & CEO, Mochi Love
Brandie brings a wealth of food industry experience, blending expertise in startups, retail buying, and e-commerce with a passion for food accessibility. She began her career launching a small ice cream brand, driving it from food service into retail through strategic sales and marketing. She then transitioned to the buying side as a category manager for Grocery Outlet, a 400-store chain, where she championed Natural & Organic (NOSH) products, growing it into the company’s largest category. Her efforts contributed to Grocery Outlet’s 2019 IPO.
Her dedication to making healthy, high-quality food more accessible deepened at Misfits Market, where she served as Senior Director of Grocery. There, she and her team expanded affordable grocery options nationwide, launched an upcycled food initiative, and introduced over 400 new SKUs in just three years—all while scaling operations across four warehouses.
Brandie’s impact has been widely recognized, earning her industry accolades such as:
Supermarket News’ 2016 Disruptor
Progressive Grocer’s 2019 Top Women in Grocery – Rising Star
Natural Foods Merchandiser’s May/June 2019 Cover Feature
NEXTY Judge at Expo East 2022
MENTORS
Cassie Burr
Cofounder, Board Director, Women On Boards Project
Cassie is the co-founder and former CEO of Women On Boards Project, a nonprofit she helped build over 6 years to increase the representation of women on private, consumer company boards.
During her time leading the organization, they supported 75 board placements (and counting!) across brands including Simple Mills, Chomps, King Arthur Baking, Welch's, Honey Pot, Traditional Medicinals, Rowan, Fellow, Stone Brewing, Urban Remedy, and Good American — alongside investment partners such as VMG Partners, Gauge Capital, Siddhi Capital, and Encore Consumer Capital.
Before founding Women On Boards Project, Cassie was a Talent Partner at VMG Partners, working closely with consumer portfolio companies and boards — experience that deeply shaped how she thinks about governance, leadership, and long-term value creation.
She’s passionate about challenging outdated definitions of board leadership and closing the DEMAND (not supply!) gap that keeps women — despite driving most consumer purchasing decisions — out of boardrooms.
Mirek Boruta
Senior VP and General Manager, North America, Enervit
Mirek Boruta has spent over 20 years building and scaling commercial engines for globally recognized CPG brands — including Feastables, Clif Bar, and Danone — owning P&L, international expansion, and distribution strategy across 30+ markets and four continents. He currently leads North American expansion for Enervit, a global sports nutrition brand, and serves on the board of Naturally Bay Area, advising emerging brands on commercial strategy and growth. Outside of work, Mirek is a husband and father of two who lives what he sells — a runner, cyclist and tennis player with a genuine passion for the outdoors and a commitment to eating healthy and sustainably for himself, his family, and his community.
Azul Couzens
Co-Founder & President, ¡Ya Oaxaca!
Bay Area native with 18+ years experience building brands in the active lifestyle consumer segment.
Vincent Kitirattragarn
VP Marketing, Calbee
Vincent Kitirattragarn is currently VP Marketing at Calbee. He was previously GM at Mila, a modern Chinese food brand. Before that, he was Founder/CEO of Dang Foods, an Asian-American snack company with over $100M of aggregate sales. In total, he raised $12M of capital from angels, VC, and strategic partners. Dang’s coconut chips, rice chips, and nutrition bars are found in over 10,000 grocery stores and have earned many industry awards including the coveted SOFI “best snack” award multiple times. Dang’s journey was featured on NPR’s “How I Built This” podcast, and has been featured on social media by Chrissy Tiegen and Kourtney Kardashian.
A Cornell Graduate, Vincent is a Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee, and is on the Gold List A100 list of the top 100 Asian Americans. He is a board member of several CPG brands, and is director of a local camp for Asian American youth
Stephanie Louie
Founder and Chief Strategist, One10North
Stephanie Louie is a CPG brand and marketing strategist with over 20 years of experience in brand positioning, messaging, research, and innovation. After getting her MBA at USC, she started in brand management at Del Monte Foods, where she spent an impressive ~10 years managing portfolios across canned fruits and vegetables, tuna, and condiments. She then joined the Red Vines team as a brand strategist, working in a scrappy startup-like environment that challenged industry leaders such as Hershey's, before transitioning to agency-side strategy work serving CPG and Bay Area tech clients. Stephanie launched her own marketing agency in 2018 and has supported both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies across food & beverage and consumer durables.
Robyn Rutledge
Founder, SBG Growth
Robyn Rutledge is an accomplished operator and investor in the consumer sector. Robyn began her career with Goldman Sachs on Wall Street and went on to work for best-in-class private equity firms including Thoma (Cressey) Bravo and TSG Consumer, where she was both a Partner and Operating Partner. Robyn has continued investing in disruptive, high growth consumer brands and has also continued her passion and love for operations, most recently having stepped in as Interim CEO and Executive Chair of Yerba Madre (Guayaki.) She remains passionate about life-long learning and continues to mentor and support entrepreneurs, including through on-going participation in The Food Business School at the CIA. Her formal education includes a Bachelor of Commerce with Honors from Queen’s University in Canada and an MBA from Stanford, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Hector Saldivar
Founder & CEO, Tia Lupita
Hector moved to the USA from Monterrey, Mexico, in 2005 as a territory sales manager for a Mexican startup and rose through the ranks, working with major companies such as Nestlé USA and Diamond Foods. During his time at Diamond Foods, Hector was an integral part of the Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn leadership team that overtook Orville Redenbacher’s to become the number-one-selling microwave popcorn in the United States.
Hector went on to found Tia Lupita® Foods, a better-for-you, Mexican-inspired food brand known for using clean and simple ingredients across its product portfolio. Tia Lupita® was the first brand to introduce Nopales Cactus as an alternative, functional, and sustainable ingredient in the U.S. market. Under his leadership, the company earned multiple accolades, including Foodbytes by Rabobank Judges’ Choice Winner, Natural Products Expo West Pitch Slam Winner, and Naturally Bay Area Pitch Slam Runner-Up.
In 2025, Hector successfully sold Tia Lupita® Foods to Vilore Foods, the U.S. commercial subsidiary of Mexican powerhouse brands La Costeña and Jumex. He continues to lead the brand as CEO, overseeing its growth and expansion in the U.S., Mexico, Europe, and Asia under the Vilore portfolio. TIME Magazine has recognized Hector as one of “80 Mexicans Helping Shape Contemporary Culture.”
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Commerce from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León and a Master’s in European Business from EDHEC Business School in Nice, France.
Meet the Brands Sampling in our Innovation Showcase
Naturally Rising Committee
Jamie Emerson-Heery, BPM
Lynn Graham, Kainos Capital
Monique Llamas Buckler, Naturally NorCal
Cathy Kolumbus, Brand Leader
Ian Malone, Aspect Consumer Partners
Vanessa Toy, Cultivate Creations
Jill McLewis, Naturally NorCal
Anna Ten Elshof, IFF
Drew McGowan, Open Heart Marketing
Over $100K in Prizes!
Our Sponsors Are Showing Up Big — See What’s on the Line!
Our prize package has just been announced! We’re setting up one lucky founder with a Grand Prize package valued at $75K+ including the tools, support, and connections to take their business to the next stage — and giving all of our finalists a platform to grow.
Grand Prize Winner
$5,000 cash provided by Aspect Consumer Partners
5 × 10’ Booth at New Hope Network’s Newtopia Now show in Denver
Slot to compete on the national stage with other Naturally Network regional Naturally Rising winners
$15K in Legal Services provided by Baker Botts
NIQ Trend Analysis
One-year membership to the MISTA Residency Program for 2 employees — access to the MISTA Innovation Center, which has food development spaces, common hot desk/conference rooms, and bio-tech labs (a $24,000 value!!)
$5000 (25 hours) in shopper marketing consulting and creative support from Parabolic
80 hours of operations/marketing assistance from HigherRing ($5,000 value)
Two hour lunch or virtual consultation plus 20 hours of conference room time at BPM‘s San Francisco, Santa Rosa, San Jose, or Sacramento offices
Three hours of pitch and/or financial consulting from Propeller Industries
Brand & Packaging Audit Review + 3 hours of Consulting by Nuex Creative
Three-hour workshop with lunch at the Mattson Innovation Center
2 hours Amazon strategy consulting time with Lynn Graham, Strategic Advisor - Amazon for Kainos Capital
2nd Prize Winner
One hour of pitch and/or financial consulting from Propeller Industries
Brand & Packaging Audit Review + 3 hours of Consulting by Nuex Creative
1 hour Amazon strategy consulting time with Lynn Graham, Strategic Advisor - Amazon for Kainos Capital
Don Buder People’s Choice Award
One hour of pitch and/or financial consulting from Propeller Industries
Brand & Packaging Audit Review + 3 hours of Consulting by Nuex Creative
NEW in 2026! Emerging Impact Award
1 hour Amazon strategy consulting time with Lynn Graham, Strategic Advisor - Amazon for Kainos Capital
NEW in 2026! Packaging Excellence Award
$5K in Legal Services provided by Baker Botts
1 hour Amazon strategy consulting time with Lynn Graham, Strategic Advisor - Amazon for Kainos Capital
All Finalists
We're thrilled to present all finalistswith a suite of professional services:
Audit plus 1 Hour Working Session to Review Sell-In Materials from Parabolic
Course Access to help founders find and retain the right people for their team provided by Hire Like A Badass
Custom data slide and 1:1 consultation by NIQ (this was presented ahead of the event to incorporate in pitches)
Starter package from Range.me