MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How a Startup Mindset Brews Innovation at a Global Scale

Tassilo Festetics just might have beer in his blood — not because he’s been drinking, but because he has spent his whole life around beer. Long before he served as the head of global solutions at Anheuser-Busch InBev, his grandparents owned a brewery, and he sold beer to finance his education. Today, he can still fix a commercial cooler or a draft machine.

As someone who deeply respects the craft of beer, Festetics has used technology to grow AB InBev’s business capabilities and, over the past few years, has helped the company build a suite of in-house technology products from the ground up. He believes that connecting brewmasters, farmers, shop owners, and other supply chain members with technologies empowers them to spend less time on rote work and more time on tasks that propel the company forward, like dreaming up new beer recipes.

About the Author

At the time of this interview, which took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, Tassilo Festetics was the vice president of global solutions at Anheuser-Busch InBev. He is now general partner at the Growth Equity Fund, a department within ZX Ventures, the growth and innovation group at AB InBev. Chris Clearfield is a coach and consultant who works with engineers, software developers, and C-suite executives to solve complex problems. He is also coauthor of Meltdown: What Plane Crashes, Oil Spills, and Dumb Business Decisions Can Teach Us About How to Succeed at Work and at Home (Penguin Press, 2018).

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