Some might think running a brewery would be no work and all play, but it’s serious business, too. Christine Perich would know: She spent 16 years at Fort Collins’ New Belgium Brewing, including stints as chief financial officer, chief operating officer and CEO, and has since held leadership roles at Anheuser-Busch and the Craft Brew Alliance.

“I joke that at New Belgium – for a period of time, anyway – people thought we were a bunch of hippies, and I used to say, ‘You have no idea how buttoned up we are,’” Perich said.

That’s not to say the work wasn’t fun, too.

“There’s such an artisanal, cool thing about making beer,” she said. “You’re doing something that people enjoy; you’re providing something that people use to celebrate occasions, to socialize with their friends. While we were very serious as a business, I also used to tell people, ‘We’re not curing cancer. We make beer.’ So, your perspective on how you went through your day to day was more lighthearted.”

Working in the beverage industry has allowed Perich to be a part of the “ancient tradition” of brewing beer – and become a part of key moments in her customers’ lives.

“They talk about the first time they had a Fat Tire or the beer that they served at their wedding, and you become embedded in their life in a way that’s really cool,” she said.

Perich never set out to become a CEO, but somewhere along her journey from public accounting to the C-suite at New Belgium Brewing, she fell in love with leadership.

“We’re all naturally inclined to lean into the things that feel good and give us energy back – I had a coach that called it your ‘sweet spot’ – and I think I’ve always been a natural leader,” Perich said.

From her childhood playing team sports to building her early career in accounting, Perich found she liked to get things done and thrived in team environments.

“When you’re in a high-growth company, you fill the gaps and you do what needs to be done, and because I did like leading, I kept taking things on,” Perich said. “It wasn’t something that I was like, ‘Oh, that’s my north star: I want to be CEO.’ When I was at New Belgium, I just wanted to contribute – I wanted to be a part of this cool thing we were doing – and my career there just naturally evolved.”

From public accounting to New Belgium

Perich’s mother and brother were both accountants, but she initially wasn’t sure she wanted to follow in their footsteps. When she started at Colorado State University, Perich initially considered studying psychology, social work and interior design before deciding on accounting.

“I did all the things, and I just didn’t find anything I loved, and I took an accounting class, and I was like, ‘Wow, I get this, it comes naturally to me,’ and I knew I could do a lot with that,” Perich recalled. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree from the College of Business in 1991, then began a career in public accounting.

“When I was in public accounting, I really enjoyed the people side of it,” Perich said. “You’re working with so many different clients, and they have different situations, and I just really enjoyed that. I think that was my ‘aha’ moment that I’m more of a people person than I realized, because I really liked the different client interactions.”

Perich worked in a variety of positions in accounting and finance before joining New Belgium as its financial controller in 2000. She steadily climbed the corporate ladder at the brewery, becoming CFO, then CFO/COO, then president and COO, and finally, president and CEO. She also served on the company’s board of directors.

One of the initiatives Perich was most excited to work on at New Belgium was the creation of an on-site medical facility for its employees.

“That’s something I’m incredibly proud of because I think it was really forward-thinking, and we were really focused on people’s well-being,” she said. “It was never about making money – it wasn’t even really about reducing cost. It was about, ‘How do we optimize people’s health? And if we can break even doing that, that’s wonderful.’”

Perich is also proud of her role in transitioning the company to employee ownership in 2012. It was co-founder Kim Jordan’s decision to hand the company over to its employees, but Perich got to help make it happen.

“I probably worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life that December that we did that,” Perich said. “It was so rewarding to be able to be a part of that and be able to truly hand the keys over to the coworkers and say, ‘We own this thing together. Let’s go do this.’ And then, years down the road, when the company sold to Kirin, all those people did really well because they had skin in the game, and they had equity.”

A pivot to consulting

When Perich left New Belgium in 2016 as president and CEO, she was ready to take on a new challenge in the beverage industry. That led her to WTRMLN WTR, a company making non-alcoholic wellness drinks.

Although the switch from alcoholic drinks to non-alcoholic drinks brought new challenges, the industries also had similarities – and the audiences aren’t mutually exclusive, she said.

“It’s all occasion-based, so there are a lot of people that drink WTRMLN WTR that also had a beer in the evening,” she said. “Oftentimes it’s just, ‘What occasion are you participating in with people?’”

After about a year at WTRMLN WTR, she decided to step away and start her own consulting company, offering leadership coaching and strategy development.

Then in 2019, Perich joined the Craft Brew Alliance as its chief financial and strategy officer. Shortly after joining the team, she helped to complete a sale to Anheuser-Busch, and she stayed on with Anheuser-Busch to run the west region of its craft brands.

“I did that for about a year and a half, and then I wanted to have some more time back in my life again, and so, I resigned,” Perich said. She remains a senior advisor to the team that handles Anheuser-Busch’s craft and high-end brands.

At the same time, she’s leaned back into consulting and coaching while also serving on several boards.

“I don’t know if it’s my calling or my ‘sweet spot,’ but I really like leadership and I like seeing people succeed, and I like being able to share the things I’ve learned over all these years of leading teams and building brands,” she said. “That’s really where I find I enjoy my time the most is in those mentoring and coaching roles.”

Perich’s advice: ‘Be a sponge’

In addition to learning everything she needed to know to be an accountant, Perich credits the College of Business with giving her a foundation of soft skills that helped her build a successful career.

“The College of Business did a really good job of elevating our professionalism so that when it came time to graduate and go do our interviews and be the professional, you felt prepared to be the professional,” she said. “I think that really shaped me.”

Perich also continues to stay involved with the College. She serves on its Global Leadership Council, and in 2023, she was recognized at the CSU Alumni Association’s annual Distinguished Alumni Awards.

Perich loves engaging with College of Business students when she’s on campus and says her biggest advice to them is “be a sponge” and remain curious.

“My career was really built a lot on willingness to learn,” she said. “I became the COO at New Belgium because I wanted to understand production because I was like, ‘How can I do my job well as the CFO if I don’t really understand this process?’ I can’t sit in my office and be like, ‘Yes, you can buy that’ and ‘No, you can’t buy that one’ if I don’t even understand what it does. I need to be in the weeds a bit.”