Voices of Tomorrow is a recurring feature highlighting PoC who are reshaping the retail industry.
Over the past year, in speaking to people for this column, a few topics have emerged over and over in our conversations: the value of surrounding yourself with people who see your worth.
For Neha Kumar, COO and co-founder of Full Glass Wine Co, this is the rule she has lived by in the industry. In less than two years, the brand acquisition and management firm focused on the DTC wine space has acquired a number of wine companies such as Wine Insiders and Scout & Cellar and is now worth $200 million after a recent Series A funding round. But things weren’t as straightforward in the beginning.
The story begins in November 2023, when Kumar made a bid for Winc.com that had filed for bankruptcy, which is also when she saw an opportunity and approached Louis Amoroso, founder of Drinks, whom she had worked with years ago. Knowing his expertise in DTC shipping, the two joined forces and acquired Winc’s DTC business and became co-founders of Full Glass Wine Co (Amoroso assumed the CEO role).
“Maintaining good relationships, strong relationships, are very key for business overall,” Kumar told Retail Brew. “It’s a very small world, and you never know what’s going to happen.”
Still, while at the helm of a successful business today, Kumar says the industry still remains an “old boys’ club.”
“I’m really fortunate that my co-founder is phenomenal; he doesn’t treat me anything different,” she said. “I’m not getting cut any slack because I’m a woman. I have the same expectations, just as any human would. Everybody else in the space is not always that way, and it is very, very hard.”
She added, however, that having a supportive husband and people she works with has been instrumental in dealing with the many challenges that come with being a woman of color in the industry.
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“The industry is predominantly male dominated, and…it’s not always easy,” she said. “But I hope that by seeing me in this position, it gives other people confidence and the ability to stand up, that this is something that they’re interested in working toward and doing as well. It just takes a couple of us to figure these things out, to allow for that representation to be seen, which really has the ability to make a big difference and a big impact.”
It’s also why if there is one piece of advice she offers up to younger WoC, it is to find the people who “understand your worth and hold them close” which she says may not always be the people you work with.
“I don’t always have the ability to do that all the time,” she said. “I have third-party people. I'm dealing with the [third-party logistics]…they’re great, but they’re all male.”
She added that when dealing with challenges with one of the brands under her umbrella, she often needs to speak with officials in regulation, who sometimes question her ability to handle the situation, assuming they should be speaking with someone else, and overlooking her role in tasks such as handling mergers, acquisitions, and securing the bank facility for multiple companies.
“You don’t always have the ability to be able to have all those people know your value and your work, because you don’t always get to choose those people,” she said. “For me, the advice [would be] to surround yourself with people who know your value and will be there to constantly hype you up even when you don’t have the ability to do so yourself.”