Our Team
Dave Clarke | CEO
Dave Clarke is a drinks industry veteran with over 30 years of sales, marketing and general management experience in large multinational companies, established craft breweries and startups. Dave was CCO and part of the original team that built Cowbell Brewing Co., co-founder of Beatties Distillers Inc. (World's Best Vodka 2019–San Francisco W&S Awards) and president of Creemore Springs Brewery. He spent 11 years in increasingly senior roles at Diageo where he was latterly general manager for Ontario. His early career in beer started with Bass Brewers in the UK in several sales and marketing roles.
Michael Presley | CFO
With over 25 years’ experience in consumer packaged goods (CPG), hospitality and private equity, Michael has worked in senior roles for some of the world’s leading brands, such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Nabisco Foods. Michael took his classically trained experience into private equity, was the operational CFO for over 15 companies within his portfolio, and divested, acquired and started multiple businesses. He recently helped Sol Cuisine through a reverse takeover with a listing on the TSXV in May 2021 and a subsequent private sale to Plant Plus for $125M in January 2022. Michael has extensive experience in business and systems integration and implementation at a Canadian and North American scale. Michael is a Chartered Professional Accountant.
Stephen Rich | Brewing & Operations Consultant
Stephen brings 12+ years of professional brewing experience to the SymBev team. An award-winning brewmaster, Certified Cicerone, Prud'homme Beer Sommelier, and BJCP Certified Beer Judge, Stephen has been embedded in Ontario’s homebrewing community since 2004. A highly respected voice in the Ontario beer industry, Stephen has hosted more than 150 beer tasting events and helped build and operate a 27,000 sq ft destination brewery from business plan to one of Ontario's 10 largest craft breweries. His wealth of expertise includes brewing, cellar management, quality assurance, production operations & management, sales & innovation strategic development, quality & food safety programming, and production optimization.
Jack Jelinek | Director, Business Development
Jack is the founder and past owner of CRANK Lite Bev Corp., the first brand acquired by SymBev. He became one of the youngest brewery founders in Canada when he founded CRANK in 2020. Since then, he has gained invaluable firsthand experience with launching and scaling a brand, taking CRANK from the point of ideation to exit within two years. Jack has two years of private equity experience and over five years of event planning and execution experience. An HBA graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business who graduated on the Dean’s List, he generated event revenues netting just under half a million dollars while in university.
Join Us.
Think like us? Excited by the adult beverage category? Want to join our ambitious and growing team? We are always on the lookout for all-star talent to add to our SymBev roster. If you are interested, please send us an email so that we can talk more.