Featuring:

Christi Coors Ficeli, Co-Owner, Goosecross Cellars

Erica Lord, Chief Fiduciary Officer, BNY Wealth

[00:00:00] VO: What do you want your wealth to do for you? Welcome to Your Active Wealth from BNY Wealth, where we offer insights that can help support the life you want to live and the legacy you wish to create. We tackle timely topics through the lens of the five strategies that comprise our Active Wealth framework: Invest, Protect, Manage, Borrow and Spend, and provide guidance on navigating the unpredictable to help you build and sustain wealth.

[00:00:30] Erica: Welcome to Your Active Wealth. I'm Erica Lord, chief fiduciary officer at BNY Wealth and host of today's episode. Today, we are fortunate to have a remarkable entrepreneur join us to share her valuable insights. It is my pleasure to welcome Christi Coors Ficeli, who will touch on her entrepreneurial journey and the keys to success in running a business fueled by passion. A member of the Coors family, Christi has had a firsthand look at how a family-owned business can flourish for generations. After receiving her MBA from the University of Denver, Christi worked at Coors Brewing Company, now Molson Coors Beverage Company, where she served in marketing and sales leadership roles. Subsequently, she left to oversee Goosecross Cellars, a Napa Valley Boutique winery. Christi and her husband became full owners of Goosecross in 2021. Now at the helm of a business she is extremely passionate about, she is focused on preparing the next generation of her family to do great things. Today, we're looking forward to discussing some of the valuable lessons she has learned from her success within a global family business and as an owner of her own business. Christi, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:42] Christi: Thank you. Happy to be here.

[00:01:43] Erica: All right. So first off, can you just tell us a bit about getting your start in your family business, Molson Coors? Many family members find it challenging to start out in the business. So, I just hope to hear a little bit more about your experience. 

[00:01:56] Christi: It was challenging to get started in my family business. We have a rule in the family that you have to work at least two years outside of the family business before coming to work for the family, which I think is immensely valuable because it allows you to understand how other bosses operate, how other businesses operate. So I did my first two years at Xerox. I sold copiers in the Bay Area in the mid-nineties, which was fantastic. All the dot coms were starting up, so I was selling lots of copiers. And then I said I was ready. I asked my dad. I said, can I come work for the business? And he put me through an interview process and then came back to me and said, no, I don't think you're ready. And I was so mad at him. I was like, hey, I have this great experience, this great sales experience. I'm a rock star. I can do this. And he asked me to go get some experience in the packaged goods industry. So I went and tried to find the best packaged good company that I could and ended up at Gallo Winery working for them. I did sales for them for a couple of years. I did category management, which is putting all the bottles on the shelves. And then I ended up in marketing. And after about two and a half years at Gallo, I was finally ready in my father's eyes and in the company's eyes to take a step and move into the family business.

[00:03:19] Erica:  Fantastic. And once you got to the family business and started up there, you indicated you were in sales and marketing roles. But can you share how that experience was coming into the business having the Coors name and being part of the family enterprise? Any challenges there?

[00:03:37] Christi: Yes. You know, you think you have the name and you should just be granted access to everything. And it was hard for me to break into the business. It was hard for me to carve my own path. And there were expectations on me that not everybody else in the company had. But one of the things that I told my family is I said, I want to manage my career. I want to leave you guys out of this. Dad, you don't have a say. You know, sister, brother, cousins. You don't have a say in what I do. I'm here to manage my own career. And that was really successful for me because I was able to step outside of the family and figure out what I needed to do and where I needed to go to get to the level that I wanted to be at.

[00:04:25] Erica: And Christi, after working at Coors, you eventually stepped away to become a full time owner, along with your husband, of Goosecross Cellars. Can you tell us a little bit about Goosecross and how you first became interested in wine and found a path owning your own business?

[00:04:41] Christi: You know, when I was at Gallo, one of the many things I loved about Gallo was that they did a fantastic job of educating people on wine and how to taste wine, how to pair wine, what the flaws were in wine. And so they gave us a big education on wine. And I was lucky enough while I was there to meet my husband. I left Gallo to move to Colorado and work for my family business and get my MBA. And when I graduated with my MBA, he proposed and we were married a year later. And when we were talking about getting married, we were trying to decide where to live and his job was in Napa. And so we decided to take a chance on Napa. I was covering most of the state of California with our distributors for the brewery so I could live anywhere and he wanted to be closer to work and not have to commute. And so we lived in Napa and fell in love with it. We fell in love with the wine industry. We fell in love with the community. We fell in love with just being a part of this amazing, magical place in Napa. And, you know, while we were here, we talked a lot about what our future looked like, as you do when you are a newly married couple. We decided that our future was really rooted in Napa and wanted to be part of this community for the long term. And while I was at Coors, we went through many, many mergers and joint ventures and acquisitions and different CEOs and different cultures, and I got to the point in my career at the brewery that I wanted to step out on my own. I wanted to make a name for myself. I wanted to do something that was uniquely mine, and I really wanted to build upon my entrepreneurial spirit, and I looked back at my ancestors, my great-great grandfather, my great grandfather, my great uncle, my dad. And they had all done these amazing things at the brewery. And we were at a size that I was having a hard time trying to find what my thing was going to be. So I got to the point where I was like, okay, I want to do my thing. I want to do my own thing. I want to not have a safety net behind me. And I jumped in with both feet and we purchased Goosecross, and it's been spectacular.

[00:07:06] Erica: That's really exciting, I’m happy for you and what a good story. Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Goosecross now? What are the things you do on a day-to-day basis and how do you keep the family business going, the entrepreneurial spirit?

[00:07:20] Christi: You know, the funny thing is, I do a little bit of everything. Sometimes I'm in the tasting room and some guests are here and there and I step in and they're like, what do you do here? And I always say, I do everything from cleaning the bathrooms to paying the bills. I like to emulate the positive attitude and the can-do attitude and the “we're going to do everything attitude” to my team. So when they see me cleaning the bathrooms, they know that's an important part of the business. But I also work really closely with my husband on strategy and marketing and the bigger picture. And we're a small team. We're a team of 14 and it's all hands-on deck and everybody has a voice here. And yes, every now and then we pull the boss card or the owner card and say, that's not going to happen. But we try and do things that are going to make us different, that are going to make us stand out to the guests. Because Napa is a big valley and you know, there's 400 wineries in Napa and you have your choice. And we want people to make their choice be Goosecross.

[00:08:25] Erica: That's great. When you think about making this transition that you did into being an owner, coming from Coors, can you share if there were any similarities in those work environments or were they just entirely different?

[00:08:39] Christi: They were pretty entirely different. Coors had become such a large company that when you wanted to make a change, when you wanted to do something interesting or new or different, it would take 12 to 18 to 24 months to get anything done. It was a very large ship, and it was hard to turn that ship. The great thing about owning my own business is when I make a decision, we put it into practice, and that's my favorite difference between the two companies. Yes, the similarities are the financials and the strategy and the marketing, and that stuff doesn't change. But being an entrepreneur and being on my own and being able to make mistakes and try things that don't work, which I have done, and put things in place and you see them flourish and it's just this overwhelming sense of pride and joy that you've done something fantastic.

[00:9:33] Erica: That's fantastic. Can you share an example maybe of an invaluable lesson that you've learned in running Goosecross? Anything that you tried, took a risk and how it worked out?

[00:9:45] Christi: One of my biggest risks was at the very beginning when I was at Coors, I had spent a lot of time with our distributors and retailers, and that was part of my sales role with them, was working with our distributors and our retailers, and I was like, I know how this works. I know how this is. I'm going to bring Goosecross into wholesale distribution. I'm going to put us on the map, start another channel. When we bought Goosecross, it was 100% direct to consumer so the only way you could get our wines was online or coming into the tasting room. And I thought wholesale distribution, I knew how it operated, I knew how distributors worked, and I thought that this was going to be a perfect opportunity for me to grow our business. What I didn't realize is the difference between being with Coors and having a brand that kept the lights on at most of our distributors versus being a small brand that didn't have a lot of cases to send to our distributors, that they were not interested in what I was selling. I created a new brand for them, and it was not successful. It cost me a lot of money and it cost me a lot of pride, but it taught me a lesson and I learned that lesson and I've taken that to the next level where now I'm working really hard to try and build our direct-to-consumer business instead of trying to build it through the wholesale channel.

[00:11:11] Erica: That's a great contrast to working in a large corporation and understand the challenge there. Is there anything that you've done that has been kind of a surprise or worked out really well in the business that at start, maybe you weren't so sure about?

[00:11:30] Christi: We try new things all the time. And our winemaker, who I love dearly and he's a great business partner to us, he every now and then comes with new ideas and he's says, can we try this? Or I've got this idea, or I want to try this new varietal. And we created a new chardonnay. It's called the Black Chardonnay, and we call it O2X because we oxidize the Chardonnay prior to fermentation. And I was like, okay, let's just make a little bit. Let's just make like 65 cases. 75 cases. And he's like, okay, we can do that. So we made this wine and we sold out in three weeks. And people call us all the time and they're like, is O2X back? Can I get that Chardonnay? I want that new special Chardonnay! So, you know, it's one of those things that we tried it once and thought, if it works, great. If it doesn't, it's not a big number of cases and we'll try and figure out what to do with it. And we've continued that for the last couple of years. And people call and ask for it all the time.

[00:12:36] Erica: That's really fun. You've been able to kind of personalize things as you go. I know one of the other things you shared with me was the  C. Elizabeth wine. Can you tell us a little bit more about that wine and how you came up with the name, C. Elizabeth?

[00:12:49] Christi: C. Elizabeth is a brand that my husband, Dave and I started before we had Goosecross and it was kind of a passion project for us. I am C. Elizabeth. So my full name is Christian Elizabeth. But I come from a long line of Elizabeths. My grandmother on my mom's side was Elizabeth. My mom's middle name is Elizabeth. And our daughter, we call her Lucy, but her first name is Elizabeth. And so we created this big Cabernet with a lot of interesting great flavors. We use American oak, which is a little bit different than most Napa cabs. Most Napa cabs are in French Oak. And it's a wine that we love and we hope everybody else loves it. But what my husband likes to say, it's for all the big personality Elizabeths in his life that sometimes drive him a little crazy, but he loves them all the same.

[00:13:34] Erica: I love the creativity and  just the spark when you start talking about how exciting it is for you  being able to personalize the business in that way. And, you know, for many of the families that we work with and many owners, they're very focused on passing along family values about money and how they built their own enterprise. And you have a unique situation because you've got a larger family enterprise that you grew up in. And then you've also gone out on your own and started your own enterprise. And so I'd love to hear more about the family values and the lessons that you've learned along your path as an owner and as part of a closely-held business and how that informs you and talking with your family and your children about money.

[00:14:23] Christi: Yeah, I think it's very important to start talking to them when they're young, teaching them about the business, teaching them about wealth, teaching them about how the family businesses operate. And I've been talking to my kids since they were five or six about it. And my son is 18. He's going off to college next year, which is devastating me, but a very good thing for him. And he's starting to think about what his future looks like. And he's not quite sure he wants to be in the wine industry yet, but he's starting to learn a lot more about the beer business and understanding what it means to be part of the beer business. And he's thinking that might be his path. Goosecross might be his path.  I was not pushed into the business. And my mom and dad always said, you don't have to come work for us. It's a choice. We don't want to push you and make you do it, because the Coors family is about 250 descendants from Adolph, and not all 250 can work for the family business. Right? Not all are cut out for it. Not all are made for a corporate job. And so I don't want to push my kids to work because I wasn't pushed to work. But my goal from a young age was to work in the family business. And my dad traveled a lot because he was trying to build the business. He was taking us from just the Western states in the United States to international. And he traveled a ton. And when he came home. I would sit and talk to him about business. And how was your trip and what did you do and who did you talk to and what kind of food did you eat? And did you sell any beer? And that was my way to interact with my dad when he was home. And it created this amazing bond between the two of us. And when you're on the kindergarten stage and you're graduating from kindergarten and they ask you what you want to be when you grow up. I said, I want to be the CEO of Coors Brewing Company. You know, most kids are saying, I'm going to be a firefighter. I'm going to be a policeman, I'm going to be a cowboy. I said, I want to be the CEO of Coors Brewing Company. And a lot of people got a kick out of that. But that was where my passion was. That was because I had that connection with my dad. And I think it was really important for me, and it kind of carved a path for me in my career goals and in my decisions growing up, is that I wanted to be in business. I wanted to work in business, and I want to instill that same value into my kids. So my husband and I talk to our kids about the business all the time. We were talking to one of our employees the other day and my daughter was like, you know, I haven't met Ryan yet. I really need to meet Ryan. You guys talk about him all the time. And so I brought her up here and she met Ryan because he's new to the business. And we have family workdays, so during harvest we will come up on a Saturday and a Sunday and we will help with harvest and we're washing bins and we're doing all the grunt work. And it is my favorite day of the year. Because they're here, they're working within the business and they enjoy it. And now my daughter asks to come to work with me. She's almost 13 and she's like, I want to come to the winery with you. And so to me, they're starting to get it at a young age. What this means and what we're trying to build here, and that makes me really happy.

[00:17:57] Erica: Yeah. And when you talk about some of these early conversations and the ideas and values that you bring about wealth to your children, can you give any examples of these conversations that you've had with them? You know, more specifically, anything that has worked or advice you've given to them about how to manage wealth?

[00:18:18] Christi: Yeah. So a couple stories on that. A big part of my life growing up was giving back to our community and my parents talked to us a lot about charitable giving. And some of it, I was a little confused. We gave a bunch of money to University of Colorado, and I was like, well, I could do a lot more with that money than University of Colorado could. And I didn't understand it. I didn't get what giving was. And so we had a lot of conversations about that. There's one time when my son was about six or seven and my husband and I were talking about some wine we were donating to St. Jude Children's Hospital and he asked us what St. Jude was. And we were talking to him about how no family gets a bill and it's all through donations. And that's why we're donating this wine to them so they can sell it and make some money. And, he goes to his room, he disappears for a little bit. He comes back with $20 nd he said, I want to give this to St. Jude because I want to help the kids, too. And I mean tears streaming down my face because I was like, what a sweet kid this is who wants to give his hard earned allowance to these kids that are struggling with cancer? So that's the giving side. The spending side is a whole different story. My son's 18 and when he when he started driving, he was like “I know I get a little bit of allowance, but that's not going to pay for gas. It's not going to pay for all the things that I need now that I'm driving.” And I told him, let's have you do an expense report each month. And he's like, “I don't understand, what is an expense report?” And I said, ‘You have to itemize every single thing that you spend money on and I'll decide what I'm going to pay for and what I'm not going to pay for at the end of the month.” And he's like, “Okay, I can do that.” So at the end of the his first month, he sent me a list of all these things and I was looking at them like, “Luke, you ate at Jersey Mike's nine times this month.” And he's like, “Yeah, I love Jersey Mike's.” And I'm like, “Yes, but you ate at it nine times and it's $14 every time you eat at Jersey Mike's. Can I make you a sandwich instead?” And so I paid for, like four of them. And he realized at that time, okay, Mom's not going to pay every time I go to Jersey Mike's, so maybe I'll go to Chipotle instead. Right? And then the next month there was other things that came up. So teaching them about the value of spending money for me has been really valuable for my son. And a lot of times he’ll want something or my daughter will want something. And I'm like, well, you have money, you have money from grandma, you have money from Nanna, and why don't you buy it with your money? And they won't buy it with their money, but they're willing to buy it with mine. And it really puts it in perspective for them on what they really want is what they'll spend their money on. And what they kind of want is what they'll spend my money on. So we have those conversations and we talk about the value of money and why it's important to decide where to spend your money.

[00:21:35] Erica: Those are really practical tips. Thank you. Very useful. And you know, it's something that I think a lot of people, a lot of parents struggle with as they're trying to teach their kids good spending habits and good giving and just how to grow wealth over time. Thinking a little bit more about your upbringing in your family before you had kids, can you talk a little bit about your family and how your family and your siblings planned and developed the family values around wealth, generation to generation? You talked a little bit about a family mission statement and working with your siblings. Can you share some of that?

[00:22:13] Christi: When I was growing up, the family didn't have the kind of wealth that that we have built today. And a lot of that is thanks to my father for his saving and his investing and what he did to build his portfolio. And you start getting married, you start having kids and the grandparents start thinking, okay, we're aging, and we need to think about what the future looks like. And we met with a family wealth advisor who I think we met four or five times throughout a year and spent a full day during that time talking about wealth transfer, talking about how to communicate with each other. And when my parents go, how we operate as a family unit. And one of the big things that we did coming out of that was we created a family mission statement, and we all received a plaque at the end of the session with these folks that outlined what our mission was. It's something that we refer back to and it's just to help us to continually think about how we operate as a family unit. Now that we all have our own kids in our own lives and we're all going in different directions. But coming back as a family, you know, my mom's an Italian, a Catholic Italian, and she's all about family and she loves her family and she loves all her little ducks in a row. And so does my dad. They want us all to flourish together. And so they've set up programs for us. They've set up trusts for us. They've set up GRATs for us. We own property together. They've put property in our names because they want us as a family unit even after they're gone. And I think it's really important to start that process early and not wait until there's a situation that happens, an unfortunate situation. If you do it early enough when you still have all your faculties and you're still running around and you're still able to have communications with your kids, I think that's the really important part. It is building it early and talking about it early so everybody understands and there's no fights once the generation above is gone.

[00:24:29] Erica: That's great advice and really practical around setting expectations. One of the other things - I know we're getting close to the end of our time - but you shared that relatively recently, you and your family set up a family office to try to provide more collective management of the family wealth. Can you tell us a little bit about how you decided to set the family office up and the roles that you and your siblings play in the operation of the family office?

[00:25:02] Christi: So I want to say it was about ten years ago. Myself, my sister and one of my cousins went to Northwestern University and did their five-day intensive family business program. It was a lot. It was 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and we talked a lot about family business and family wealth transfer. And before that, my family didn't have a family office. We had trusts and we had a board of trustees who managed the trusts. But as our businesses grew and the dollar amounts of our family trusts grew, we knew we had to do something different. So, my sister and my cousin put together a proposal for the family to build a family office. And this is right around when I was stepping away from the family business and coming into Goosecross. And it has been, in my opinion, hugely successful for the family. It helps keep all 250 descendants together. It helps manage the businesses that we have. We don't just have the brewery. We have a bunch of other businesses as well. And the greatest thing, in my opinion, that they did is my sister's the managing director, but we hired professionals to help us run the family office. It's not just a bunch of family members. It's not the Wild West. We have professionals that are there to help with mergers and acquisitions and finance and tax. They are the ones that are really helping us to continue to grow the family business as well as to continue to keep the family together.

[00:26:47] Erica: That's fantastic. Thank you for those insights, Christi. Really, thank you for joining us today. For our listeners to learn about finding the best way to preserve your legacy or for any questions along your journey, I encourage you all to reach out to a BNY Wealth Manager. Thanks for joining us all and we'll see you next on that next episode of Your Active Wealth. Thank you.

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