NutraWomen Wednesday: Eliza Ganesh, CEO and Co-Founder, Sunwink

11-May-2022 - Last updated on 11-May-2022 at 16:59 GMT

Research suggests only about 1 in 5 C-suite executives are women, and while the issue of gender equity touches nearly every industry, female leadership in the food and beverage industries presents its own unique challenges, like mass-market heritage brands and competitive shelf space—but the women behind functional beverage brand Sunwink are flipping the script by leading the charge on the industry’s evolution.

Eliza Ganesh, CEO of Sunwink, founded the company with Jordan Schenck, who previously was Head of Consumer Marketing for Impossible Foods. Ganesh credits much of Sunwink’s success to the people who helped her get Sunwink off the ground.

“I was taking herbalism class with this woman, Anna Beauchemin, and I asked her if she would meet up with me for coffee after class and I shared the idea of Sunwink with her and I asked if she would come on as an advisor for our team and add her expertise into thinking about how we talk about these ingredients and how we talk about formulations and we do formulate. She saw something grow from a sketch on a piece of paper and a couple of mason jars of liquid into what it is today. And we work with her all the time now," Ganesh said.

"She just led an introduction to herbalism class for our employees yesterday. Her helping us as a guide has been really important. I also think it's really important to support nutritionists, herbalists, etc, who have studied in this space, and have made their whole career on learning about this and helping to educate others. I think if you're going to start a company in this space, it's really important to support those people and keep them within the dialogue of what you're building," she added.