John Linehan - Alliance Director
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Biography
John Linehan has over twenty-five years of experience in consumer goods and related industries. He has consistently developed and executed strategies that have accelerated successful growth across multiple channels of distribution.
Linehan began his career at Procter & Gamble where he moved through their sales management organization selling food products. He then joined the Clorox Company where, for seventeen years, he held positions of increasing responsibility in sales, marketing and general management. Much of his time there was spent on turning around stagnant or struggling businesses both domestically and internationally; this is where he honed his skills at developing strategic plans for successful growth.
His many assignments at Clorox taught him to adapt quickly to a wide variety of business situations. He worked with numerous product categories that were sold through many trade channels including grocery, mass, drug, department, food service and many more. As National Sales Director of Brita water filter systems (a Clorox subsidiary), sales volume grew at triple digit annual growth from $10m to over $100m in just three years. During that assignment, Linehan became enamored with the fast pace, flexibility and excitement of smaller businesses.
In 1997, Linehan left Clorox to pursue his passion for new challenges in smaller business environments. He joined IDV Wines as Vice President of Marketing and played an active role in developing a strategy that resulted in the successful integration of eight mergers and acquisitions in less than two years resulting in the creation of the largest beverage alcohol company in the world, Diageo. Returning to his passion for smaller companies, he then joined PowerBar to assist the founders in preparing the company for a liquidity event. The plan exceeded its goals ahead of schedule and the company was sold for a world record price. Linehan then joined a retail sales floor technology company, Imagicast, as EVP of sales & marketing and was later appointed COO. Linehan also served as President and CEO of Guardian Angel Holdings, Inc. a San Francisco consumer goods company.
As Managing Director of Linehan Consulting, he is actively involved in helping consumer goods companies be more successful primarily through work in three areas: assisting executive teams to develop and execute strategies for successful growth; advising investors on potential acquisitions in the consumer goods industry; and assuming line responsibility during transition periods. In 2004, he was acting CEO at Wabi, Inc. during such a transition. More recently, he has worked closely with Method, Inc. in the development and implementation of their strategic growth plan and where he assumed line responsibility as VP Sales for six months while assisting in the restructure of their sales organization. Linehan is also helping companies such as King's Hawaiian, to develop strategic plans for accelerated growth.
He is a graduate of Trinity College where he was president of the student government and started two small businesses. He resides in San Francisco with his wife and two young boys. He is active as a Board member of their school, Schools of the Sacred Heart. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Megan Furth Academy and the Board of Directors of InvestStar, a financial services company.