Angelo Esposito [00:00:06]:

Welcome to Wisking it all with your host, Angela Sposito, co founder of Wisk.AI, a food and beverage intelligence platform. We're going to be interviewing hospitality professionals around the world to really understand how they do what they do, from chefs to owners, mixologists to bar managers, you name it. We want to provide you guys with a ton of value, anything hospitality related. Welcome to another episode of Wisking it all. And I'm here today with Teresa Cesario, who is known as a industry multi potentialite. Teresa, thank you for being here.

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Teresa Cesario [00:00:49]:

Thank you for having me. Angelo. That beard is looking awfully lush right now.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:53]:

It's getting there. You know, I'm keeping it in intact. I trim it, I oil it, but it's pretty much since the lockdown started. I decided to grow the beard. Before this, I usually was pretty much clean shave.

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Teresa Cesario [00:01:02]:

My life is surrounded by men that have more hair than I do is really what it's come back to. You interviewed my cousin Drew, my husband John, both of them sweeping long.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:11]:

That's true.

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Teresa Cesario [00:01:12]:

Yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:12]:

And they're both awesome.

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Teresa Cesario [00:01:14]:

Your manic pixie dream girl over here.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:16]:

No, it's awesome. Actually, believe it or not, this is actually, like, too late because you're the first female on the show, which is which, obviously, I don't do this on purpose, but just by, I need more. But, yeah, I reach out to people and get them on the show, but it just so happens that you're the first female, which is awesome. Love to get more.

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Teresa Cesario [00:01:31]:

Oh, that's so exciting.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:32]:

Yeah. So really, the way we like to start off the episode is always get a sense of how our guests got into the industry as a whole. So really, it's what's always been interesting about hospitality, I think, is people that are in it are super passionate about it, and they usually stick around for the passion more than anything. So I love to hear from you. Let's go back to the early days. What got you into the hospitality world?

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Teresa Cesario [00:01:52]:

My journey into spirits, multi potentialism starts prior to even being 21 years old. When I was growing up, my father was always in the liquor industry. He was part of a company called Continental, which then became judge and Dolph, which then was bought by Wurtz Beverage in Chicago, Illinois. I like to say that I've always been surrounded by the liquor industry from infancy, and the industry has been extremely good to my family. My father is one of those tall, dark italian men that you wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley. He is Luigi Antonio Cesario junior. At one given point, there were seven lose in our family. But my dad took the path less traveled.

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Teresa Cesario [00:02:38]:

I always respected my father in this industry because he worked his way up. Back when you could just climb a corporate ladder, he worked in the POS warehouse driving a forklift, then became a salesman, then became a manager all the way up to being the vp of what was the largest distributor in Chicago. So just completely enamored by my dad and his presentation skills and his ways of working. He's one of those people that would get up onto a stage when he was doing GSM meetings and you just couldn't stop listening and watching him because he's just so captivating and the cadence of his voice. And for me, growing up as a performer, I always looked at my dad and listened to him on calls with his authoritative tonality and his articulation and his comical nature. And I was like, wow, this is so entertaining. And my dad always said to me that the closest thing to being in the entertainment industry without being in it directly was being in the liquor industry. We are surrounded by these casts of characters, and every different bar or outlet that you go into is a new scene to set the stage to spread the word about whatever brand or brands that you're representing.

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Teresa Cesario [00:03:59]:

That has always been. The initial call came from my father, but I used to be a radio dj for Fox network.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:08]:

Yeah.

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Teresa Cesario [00:04:08]:

So I had a tv show on Fox in Chicago with legendary shock Jock man. I was his co star, Trixie, because they said I looked like the girl from Speed Racer. And I did radio and from radio, there was always corporate sponsorships. And so I got to see the world of liquor as it, its cadence was with corporate sponsorship. But my first, I guess, voyage directly into the liquor industry happened after college. So I graduated from Columbia with a BFA with a focus on public relations and jazz music. So obviously it makes perfect sense. I'm in the liquor industry because you think of jazz music and you think of alcohol, right? I walked in and I was interviewing with southern mind and spirits for what was a portfolio manager world with Bacardi.

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Teresa Cesario [00:05:03]:

And as a true performer, you fake it till you make it right. Like you walk in with the confidence of a thousand horses ready to stampede and you sell yourself. I always have thought that the interview process was, was so entertaining because where else do you get to go into a room and talk about how awesome you are and they actually want to hear it, right?

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:26]:

That's amazing.

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Teresa Cesario [00:05:28]:

Yeah, it is so true. So I interviewed with Southern, representing Bacardi. So I worked for southern wine and spirits for my first two years. And then Bacardi USA, there was two women, two extremely strong, wonderful women who are still mentors of mine in this industry. One is Kathleen Smith, who has been with Bacardi for over 25 years, and Rachel Irvin, who is a maven in the hospitality industry, just a force to be reckoned with. These two extremely strong women handpicked me as the individual to come on board as a market manager for Illinois at the age of 23. So I'm 23 years old, and I'm overseeing on premise Illinois and God, they had so much faith in me. I look back now, and I was such a.

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Teresa Cesario [00:06:19]:

I had to have been such a disaster to deal with. I remember one time they came in my office and they shut the door, and they're like, okay, Teresa, here's a gift certificate to Ann Taylor. You no longer can wear bb to the office. And here I am. I'm like, I think I look real sharp with my bedazzled turtleneck and my shiny red blazer. They're like, not so much so. Spent a lot of time with Bacardi. My first, I call it five, six years in the industry.

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Teresa Cesario [00:06:47]:

And then I met my now husband, who was working with team enterprises, based in Florida, and I was told to stay away from him because he was bad news on the dating front. You see his charisma and you can't walk away. So I dated him long distance till I moved to Florida, where I took a role as the state manager for Stolen Rum, which is a unique offering that was acquired by a company actually in Chicago. But it was a coffee and cigarettes rum, which the cigarettes was just fenugreek. So it was an homage to fear and loathing in Las Vegas. Was with them for a year before I started working with Pernod, Ricard and absolute Elix. And from Pernod, I've been there now for seven years on the same brand, Absolut Elix. So I went from being a brand ambassador to a national brand ambassador mentor, and then now one of their brand managers, brand activation managers for the brand and have been there for seven years now.

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Teresa Cesario [00:07:51]:

So that has been my journey.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:53]:

Yep. That's really cool to hear how that journey happened. You had a bit of maybe exposure from your dad to get a sense of what can maybe go on. But how did that first kind of leap happen from, okay, you graduate, you saw opportunity, and, like, what did the years look like in terms of actual.

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Teresa Cesario [00:08:09]:

You know, oh, so this is fun. So this goes back to the days when you would do promotions for, like, energy drinks. So all throughout college, I worked with amp energy as one of their amp energy girls. So I would bounce around in my jean shorts and my tank tops to all of these music festivals and fun things that were happening around Chicago, and I did promotions. And you get a taste of what field activation looks like and what it means to build advocacy with consumers from a gorilla marketing technique. We used to just be in a big monster truck. They drop off a cooler of energy drinks on wheels. And it wasn't until the cops told us to leave and there'd be two girls just scurrying down the street, calling our field manager.

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Teresa Cesario [00:08:59]:

They made us go. They made us go. And we'd be scurrying down the street with a tub of energy drinks, handing them to people as we run away. So, yeah, so it was that experience of having guerrilla marketing and field marketing underneath my belt that allowed me the opportunity to step into this spirits industry. I obviously was a patron at bars, I obviously was a patron at restaurants. So I knew what it was to be the recipient of hospitality. But you break down the word hospitality in its host fatality to being a consummate host and growing it up. In an italian household, you're taught to host no matter how tired you are, no matter totally.

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Teresa Cesario [00:09:42]:

And who's coming over? I am the italian grandma.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:45]:

That's.

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Teresa Cesario [00:09:45]:

Oh, you just came for dinner. Let me make you a, let me make you a sirloin. Let me make you a plate of pasta. It's just about service. And you look at the word service and it serve us. Not only is hospitality about what you're giving, but it's about the reciprocation of what it's nice and what it feels like to give something to somebody without any expectation of anything in return. It's about the art of giving. So for me, it was a natural progression based on, like, my moral aptitude of development as a human being being, coupled with my very preliminary experience of field marketing and my genuine appreciation of sales.

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Teresa Cesario [00:10:28]:

And then how it came from a perspective is performance. I spent my entire college years playing in rock bands and performing a degree with jazz as a minor. You're always up on stage, so when you're communicating with people, knowing that if you're sparkly and shiny, they're going to want to be around sparkly and shiny. So making sure that your light bulb is fully charged and you're giving that goodness to people.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:54]:

And I remember, I think the first time I met you was through John at tales of the cocktail I just remember that description you just gave of attracting people. That's exactly what I noticed. I don't know who this girl Theresa is, but I want to be her friend. Awesome vibes, good energy. I want to hang out with her. Like, you're always in a good mood. Yeah, I can imagine that. Such a, you know, it sounds so obvious, but it's such a valuable skill in sales to be likable.

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Angelo Esposito [00:11:17]:

And question for you. Okay. In the early days when you first started working there, what in the industry was your dad kind of mentoring you or you found your own mentors within the industry?

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Teresa Cesario [00:11:26]:

I would say my father is always a shepherd for us, but he is a firm believer of opening the doors and we have to walk through. And one of the main reasons I didn't go into wine was because I didn't want to always be serious daughter. And especially in Chicago, there are people that are. You're a union sales rep with Southern, and you don't leave. There are people that are still there that were on the up and up with my dad growing up. So it was always trying to make a name for myself. My mentors have always been very strong women, from the early days with Dana Hauser, who is still at Southern, to Rachel Irvin and Kathleen from Bacardi to now. Currently, I had three amazing mentors at Purnault, one being the most creative woman I've ever met in my life.

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Teresa Cesario [00:12:21]:

Miranda Dixon, Stefan Oghini, and Jonas Fallon. And Stefan has now gone on to create his own tequila, and Jonas is now the VP at Moet Hennessey. So you find these people that shepherd you, and then as their careers progress and they continue to shape you in their likeness and the positivity of their likeness, you tend to follow them. Right. So it just opens up more doors for you. So I think one of my biggest recommendations to people early on in their career would be find mentors as you evolve, and it's okay to change them, but make sure you stay in contact, even if it's just a message once a quarter to people, to make sure that you still value their guidance. People want to see other people succeed, and especially in this industry.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:11]:

Right. I love that advice because it's, I think not enough people understand how important it is to have a mentor like large. Like, things are tough, work is hard think, and, like, especially in hospitality. But I even think of myself in the tech industry, where, you know, things are so volume down, up and down, having that you can rely on, that can guide you. Right. It's important to learn from your own mistakes. But it's helpful, I always say, to also learn from other people's mistakes. Maybe, you know, a lot of the people listening, I think that that's great advice.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:38]:

Right? Find a mentor. What advice would you give them in terms of how to find that, right. Mentor? Like, what do you look for when you were looking for a mentor?

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Teresa Cesario [00:13:46]:

So as I move into the quarter of my life that I'm in right now, I'm currently looking for a mentor that's potentially outside of this industry. So it's a great question that you just asked because I'm having to investigate that answer in the present moment. I think when you are part of larger corporations, obviously your boss or your boss's boss are great people to look to for mentorship. But even more so than wanting their job, I think you need to look at people and their accolades as human beings. Are they morally righteous? Do they vibrate at a high level of frequency? What do they bring to the table that is outside of just occupational intelligence? Looking at a woman who is married, has children, juggles that life as well as her occupation and find success. You learn from them not just about what to do and what not to do with your career path, but your life path. They're able to offer you guidance if they've been able to find that synergy between passion and purpose and life and work. So I think it's about finding people that have the intersection of success and both their personal life and their work life.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:11]:

Drop the mic. That was a good answer. No, no, honestly, it was great. It was great. Amazing that you were genuinely thinking of that on the spot. And advice, like, to all our listeners out there, yeah, it's have occupational mentorship, but when looking at that person, it's, how are they in their day to day life? Are they happy or what are they doing? You don't just want to follow someone because they're successful at their career but miserable everywhere else. So great advice. That's awesome.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:33]:

And so moving on. So five years. You were five years there. What was the next step in your life? Okay, my time here is done. Right? Like, when do you, for other people out there, maybe stuck in the job? And I say stuck because sometimes maybe people are happy, maybe they're not. Maybe they're not sure if they're comfortable, you know? So for you, what was that moment, I should say, where you were like, okay, my time here is done. You know, I'm ready for something new.

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Teresa Cesario [00:15:54]:

It came in the form of a six foot five, long blonde haired mufasa mix, Fabio creature that walked into my office at Bacardi, I would say that life happened right. You never know. You never know what love will, when love will walk into your door. And it walked into my door at that time. And I did the best I could to stay away from it because I was on a great career path. But like we just discussed, you have to have success in your life as well as your career. And for me, I wasn't looking for love, but it found me. And John and I have now been together for almost ten years.

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Teresa Cesario [00:16:38]:

And we dated long distance for six to eight months. And I have to tell you, it was one of the most difficult decisions I ever made because I had such a beautiful work family at Bacardi. Actual Bacardi family members like Alex Argamasia was on my team, Rachel, Craig, all of these beautiful individuals. And I was happy. I was so happy with what I was doing. And I think that's such a difficult decision that we are faced with sometimes on what's the most important thing. And for me, in this case, love conquered all. And I remember I didn't tell my boss, Rachel, for six months that we were secretly dating because he was part of our agency and Bacardi was the client.

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Teresa Cesario [00:17:25]:

And I was so nervous. And I remember going into her office and I'm crying and I'm so sad, and I'm telling her what I did, and she's like, I've known this whole time. She knew the whole time. And she's one of your best friends. You don't think I know this? And I'm like, I'm so sorry. And she's like, I get it. So that was tough because I ended up taking a job that I wasn't sure of. I wasn't sure I could do the job I took, to be honest.

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Teresa Cesario [00:17:53]:

So I became the sales manager for Florida for this rum company called Stolen Rum, which was an innovation brand, and it was very small. I went from working with a large portfolio like Bacardi, where you walk in the door, everybody knows who you are to a brand that was like a super aggressive hand sell. And it had the word cigarettes on the label. They've since taken it off. But I am like a beacon of health and wellness, and here I am trying to convince people to put a rum on their back bar that says cigarettes on it. I was like, okay, let's talk. It was. But I took the job, was really excited about it, grew the brand substantially in Florida, had a really fun time doing it because they were kind of up for anything.

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Teresa Cesario [00:18:44]:

They were a real risk taker as far as branding goes, whereas, and they definitely didn't have the same legal counsel as Bacardi did, but they, yeah, they definitely let us do a lot of guerrilla marketing, was a great product. Learned a lot about working for a small company. And then, as the universe would have it, I went to the film festival in part city, Utah, and I met a girl named Kristin, Kristin Vesley now, but she was working for Absolute. She was one of the original brand ambassadors ever hired for Absolut vodka. So she'd been with absolute for almost a decade, and she's. You're so lovely and fun. They're expanding our team with this new brand called Absolute. Would you be interested in brand ambassadorship? And this was at a time where, like, brand ambassadors didn't really have an identity because I don't think it has been in since the past, maybe four to five years that people actually had a strong respect for the role, that people understood what the role was supposed to be doing.

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Teresa Cesario [00:19:50]:

And at that time, it was viewed as like this fluffy job that didn't really require much. And as a salesperson, I admit, as a salesperson, I. I was like, these roles are just so fluffy and pointless. I had that mentality at a point in time. And it wasn't until I actually stepped into one of those roles that I understood what the potential was for success with it. Irony is that my husband runs the advocacy team for team. Makes this so hilarious. But, yeah, I think there was a roundabout way to answer your question, but, yeah, that's how I ended up where I am today in Florida.

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Teresa Cesario [00:20:28]:

I'm a big believer that you have to believe in not just the product that you are selling, but the person you work for. Every single role that I've ever taken, I have looked at the person who would be my boss, and it had been a huge deciding factor in me taking a job or not taking a job, because you have to want that person to succeed and you have to want to work hard for that person. Otherwise the motivation is not there. So the idea of me doing a great job so that my direct report looked great, I was excited to do that. So I've had amazing bosses. Literally, I can't say a bad thing about anybody that I've ever worked for. I'm the luckiest person on this planet. And so for me, working for a big corporation, it's somewhat political.

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Teresa Cesario [00:21:16]:

I think that gets a little messy sometimes. I feel like all it means is doing enough good pr on yourself that people around you have the desire to work with you for you or have you work for them. So it goes back to the first thing that I said when we first got on this call was being a lighthouse. So being that bright light that no matter what's going on in the organization, whether it be a huge reorg, that they can turn to you as a beacon of positivity. So with large corporations, it's about being this big, bright light. I think with a smaller organization, it's about being all hands on deck, really having humility, never being afraid to get your hands dirty. I won't ever forget this. Rachel Irvin was the RM for Illinois, and we were at an event, and it was super packed, and she started busing tables, and, like, just started busing tables, and I then saw her busing tables, so I began busing tables.

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Teresa Cesario [00:22:23]:

So it's about knowing that no job is too small for you, that you're not too good to do anything that if you're at. I remember it was Super bowl here in Florida, and it was pouring down rain, and these promo girls that we hired were just getting drenched and inundated. And here I am, decked out to the nines. I'm entertaining clients, and I threw a garbage bag over my head, cut a hole in it, and I went out there and I started packing things up and cleaning up with the girls. And I just. It's just about being a good human, so I think that's one thing. And with smaller companies, too, it's about having a diversified way of working. So sales, marketing, ecom, everything, you have to do a little bit of everything.

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Teresa Cesario [00:23:10]:

There's not different divisions and someone to call multi potentialite. You can do a lot of things while wearing one hat. I always say I'm wearing a really big hat, but it has a lot of tassels, and each of the tassels has a little accoutrement hanging from the bottom of it, whether it's like a computer or a microphone or a music note. It kind of compact, has the capacity of being you in a full spectrum.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:35]:

No, that's a good way of putting it. For me, when I think of it, a big company, a lot of the times, is good in terms of structure and potentially working your way up the ladder and security. You know, smaller companies at times is considered riskier, but also with that risk comes kind of that curiosity that gets nourished, you know, because you get to wear many hats, so you get to do many things, but. But there's definitely pros and cons. To both for. For me, I've always liked me, now I work for myself, but for the longest time, I love the vibe in small companies because I like when things move fast. But then again, I've never worked for too many big companies. I wouldn't be able to contrast too well.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:11]:

But, yeah. So to fast forward, so fast forward now. So five years at your first job, then you transferred into this role for how many years? And to kind of summarize, like today, what's your current role? Is it still the same? Are you currently brand ambassador?

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Teresa Cesario [00:24:26]:

I'm going on seven years with Alec, so I'm currently on the brand team and I manage the activation component for absolute alicks. So that's all about taking our overarching brand plans and working with the teams in every single one of our states to localize the program for maximum effectiveness, as well as, especially this year, pivoting the brand from being 90% on premise to 70% off premise, which everybody had to make some significant changes and pivots to their brand and their route to market strategy. So that's where my role is. But that being said, the reason I have this jacket here is because I had to do a training for Alabama this morning because we don't have. Have a ambassador that sits with. So I, like I said, multi. Potentially, I'm willing to do anything that needs to be done if it's for the advancement of the role and the brand.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:22]:

That's amazing. And so I'd love for you to touch on if you could share. Did absolute Elix do what? Everything kind of shifted to off premise. Right. Like a lot of companies. I mean, not only hospitality, a lot of companies in general, but specifically hospitality obviously had to pivot a lot. Can you share any of the things that you guys have done?

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Teresa Cesario [00:25:40]:

Yeah, of course, I mentioned her before, but there's a woman by the name of a Miranda Dixon, and Jim Meehan put out a book about the hospitality grades. And if you turn to a page that's entitled the Vodka Princess, you will find a picture of her and a story about her as an individual. And she's known in this industry for her ingenuity and her just radical creative mind. And so with Miranda, you give her a lemon, and she doesn't make lemonade. She figures out a way to get a frozen snow cone machine that's in the shape of a unicorn that makes sparkly snow. And it doesn't taste like lemon, it tastes like strawberry lemonade, because things that are pink and taste like strawberry are clearly better like, I don't. It's one of those people who you just want to climb inside their brain and just try and figure out what's going on, but you never really know. So she took the reins in our premise execution in developing, for the first time, absolute Elix Vaps.

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Teresa Cesario [00:26:43]:

So for those of you listening that don't know what a VAp, it's like a value added product that is seated alongside of a bottle of alcohol in the off premise. So when you go to a grocery store and you see a bottle with two pretty cups or like a shaker, that's a Vap. But in true Moran fashion, we weren't going to offer basic cups. We created this amazing Elix disco Vap that had disco cups that were shaped like disco balls alongside the absolut Elix bottle, as well as a recipe booklet. But in addition to that, what I did is I worked with our team here to create what was the absolute Elix virtual disco experience. So in five key markets across the country, we worked with local dj's to create a Spotify playlist of disco music, which is obviously on the insurgents right now, everybody's listening to disco and to create playlists that were on our Elix Spotify playlist. But in the off premise, we also had a QR code that would traffic you to live virtual events that you could tune into across the country and listen to these top Disco DJ's from Boston, New York, LA, and Nevada and Florida, and tune in so that you are having this celebratory moment of music and cocktails in your comfort of your own home, but with all these other people, and in the same time raising money for hospitality relief funds in each of these cities. So making sure, while we're operating in the off premise, we're still taking care of the on premise individuals that are so vital and so important to the community.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:27]:

That's really cool. As a side note, I definitely want you to send me those playlists. I love Disco, so I want to add those playlists to my Spotify listen, which is, which would be great. And I'll also include it when we release this episode. I'll include the links. I think people would love that. It's cool to see how people have adapted. I know it's tough, and it's just something as simple as a QR code.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:49]:

I don't know if you remember when QR codes kind of first came out, but then they kind of died. But then because of the way things worked out and with menus at restaurants, it's kind of the second wave. It's crazy.

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Teresa Cesario [00:29:00]:

It's unbelievable. I remember Q QR codes. Who uses those? I'm from the analog to the digital generation. I was born in the late eighties, so I feel like I'm on the tail end of those that remember life without cell phones. And like then in my teens and early twenties, the adaptability of this digital lifestyle and QR codes came out in a frenzy and then became immediately obsolete just to become the most widely used menu for this past year. It's crazy.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:33]:

Yeah, it's been crazy seeing it at as menus and even as payment options now just scan the QR code and pay. And it's funny how fast it's adapted. So crazy. Crazy. And so one of the ways we typically love to wrap up the episode is with something called last Day on earth. So really the idea is just if it was your last day, what would be your go to beverage of choice and will be your go to meal of choice? So I'd love to. I'd love to hear.

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Teresa Cesario [00:30:01]:

You know, I feel like these types of questions were asked a lot during COVID because everyone was wondering at the end of the world, I am a purist with my drinks. My drink would be a absolute Elix Martini with an in and out of dry vermouth and a twist, freezing cold. And my meal I would pick would be probably the saag paneer and samosas from London, preferably shared with all my best industry friends around a table and enjoying together.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:35]:

That's amazing. That's amazing. Theresa, thank you so much for taking the time to chat today. It was really, really awesome.

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Teresa Cesario [00:30:41]:

My pleasure. Thank you for having me. This has been so enjoyable and it's great to see your face.

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