Catalyst Spirits, the maker Howler Head Bourbon, announced the appointment of Heather Alper as Managing Director U.S. and Canada, reporting directly to CEO Simon Hunt. Alper was previously Regional Managing Director, U.S. and Canada, for global premium drinks company William Grant & Sons.
Alper is a 25-year veteran of the U.S. spirits industry. As a Board-level Director at William Grant & Sons, she was responsible for driving the global commercial change agenda to ensure profitable sales growth, brand premiumization and efficient advertising & trade investments in the US and Canada.
This role leveraged her experience building cross-functional partnerships internally across sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain and externally with distributors and agencies. Before that post, Alper held executive roles at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits/Glazer’s Distributors for over ten years, with experience in eCom, trade marketing and sales.
Other notable positions include five years as an Advisory Board Member for the WSWA Women’s Leadership Council and nearly eleven years at luxury giant Moët Hennessy USA (LVMH) in a variety of sales and marketing roles.
Catalyst Spirits is a new global spirits incubator company helmed by industry veteran Simon Hunt focused on leveraging the new economy and the company’s extensive experience to build and rapidly growing premium brands.
The Catalyst Spirits team seeks scalable opportunities and leverages unique brand partners to create and develop impactful brands and bring them to market with pace, building them with exceptional marketing, retail, e-commerce and distributor support.
Howler Head Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with Natural Banana Flavor has quickly become one of the fastest-growing whiskey brands in the United States. In its first full year of operations, it launched nationally in the U.S. in 2021, sold over 50,000 9L cases primarily to the U.S. and Canada markets only and generated overall net sales of USD6.7 million by local GAAP.
