Boosting Women Leadership in the Beverage Alcohol Industry
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the wine and spirits wholesale industry is not leading the pack in terms of women’s advancement and engagement. However, some organizations and leaders are actively working to change this and advocate for women.
Recently, Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) announced the graduation of 31 women wholesale leaders from the organization’s 2025 Women in Leadership (WIL) Executive Education Program. The program featured a dynamic virtual classroom experience and concluded with a two-day, in-person capstone session in Washington, D.C.
With the first class being held in June of 2019, this program was developed and brought to life with the help of many diversity advocates, including Barkley Stuart, EVP, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits.
“I partnered with a woman at Southern Glazer’s to develop the program and we came up with a lot of statistics around how businesses perform better with more women in leadership,” explains Stuart. “Citing these statistics, I made a really strong case in my speech at the at our annual conference. And because it was well received, we started this program that we called Women in Leadership.”
Encouraging Women Leadership Education
The goal for Southern Glazer’s Women in Leadership program was to accelerate the pace of growth of women into leadership roles in the wine and spirits industry, according to Stuart.
“There were a number of initiatives that we did to try and get this program up and running, with one initiative involving researching into an executive education program,” he says. “My colleague and I went and talked with every major business graduate school that had an executive education program focused specifically on women, and we settled on the Columbia Business School.”
The Women in Leadership Executive Education Program takes place once a year, with about 180 women having graduated since its inception.
Continuing to Advocate for Women in Beverage Alcohol
The Women in Leadership Executive Education Program isn’t the only way that Stuart is advocating for women in the industry. Growing up in a feminist household with his mother and older sister, diversity has always been important to him.
“My mom was a television producer, and in 1975, she was producing a documentary in Mexico City at the first United Nations conference on women,” Stuart says. “When I was 15 years old, she brought me along. And being around all those women and talking about feminism had a big impression on me.”
Fast forward to years later when Stuart began working in the beverage alcohol industry, he wanted to continue making an impact and advocating for women in a traditionally male-dominated field.
“When I started my chairmanship at WSWA in 2018, I made it my mission to put an emphasis on women. During my incoming chairman speech and even when talking with other people, I highlighted the importance of doing the right thing to do in terms of wanting our businesses to be successful and profitable,” he says.
Stuart is also on the advisory board of Women of the Vine & Spirits, an organization that empowers and helps women advance in the beverage alcohol industry. Here, he hopes to continue his outreach in supporting women.
With the help from Stuart and other diversity advocates, we’re finally starting to see some positive changes. WSWA looks forward to many more graduations from its WIL Executive Education Program.
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