NPEW 2017

Compelled to apply his talents in business to products he deeply believes in, Blair Kellison came to Traditional Medicinals® in May 2008, the Company’s 34th year, as its CEO, taking the reins from co-founder Drake Sadler for the first time since Traditional Medicinals® was founded in 1974. Traditional Medicinals (TM) is the fifth-largest bagged tea company in North America with products distributed in 70,000 retail outlets. Family-owned and intensely mission-driven, TM’s business has a multi-generation planning horizon. The company is proud to be recognized as one of the top 10% of all Benefit Corporations in the world. Blair is a former CPA with Ernst & Young, a brand manager with Nestle, and he received his MBA from The University of Chicago. In 1995, Blair made the best decision of his career by taking a 70% pay cut and trading in his brand manager position at Nestle for a business development position at a mission-driven, vegetarian food company called Fantastic Foods in Petaluma, CA. Over the past 22 years, Blair has been the first non-founder CEO of four companies. Each of these positions have been in the natural foods industry where he has applied his education and work experiences to lead mission-driven, natural/organic companies into the mainstream, enabling their brands to reach a much wider audience. He believes true sustainability requires environmental, social, and financial sustainability. Blair is a board member at Sambazon, Inc. and Co-Chair of the North Bay Food Industry Group. He lives in Petaluma, CA with his wife and two daughters.