Coworking with Charlotte Mostaed

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Charlotte Mostaed worked in marketing for P&G and Pom Wonderful—and even had a stint as a children’s museum curator—before she landed her current gig leading marketing for kombucha brand Health-Ade.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? My job is to figure out how to tap into human needs, emotional states, and behavioral patterns in order to inspire people to make different choices about what they consume. But what’s a day in the life like? One moment, I’m meeting with our CFO to look at the latest financial projections and discussing where we should put the next half a million dollars. Next, I’m ideating with my boss about how we can become a lifestyle brand that breaks out of the commodification of the beverage world. Next, I’m working with my team to activate around a new partnership with the Dodgers. And that was just this morning.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? My job isn’t about making ads! It’s much more of a balance between smart business sense, people management (making sure I enable and support my team to do their best work), problem solving, analysis—and then we get to make some really fun ads from time to time.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? I loved being at the helm when we restaged the brand in 2021. We took the best of what was created at the beginning, and working with Daina Trout, the co-founder and then-CEO, we used insights about shopper habits and kombucha trial barriers to revamp and revitalize the Health-Ade brand. It’s resulted in some amazing wins for us—we’ve consistently grown the business over 14% year on year, outpacing the category by at least 2.5X.

Which emerging retail trend are you most excited about this year, and why? Retail is fully omnichannel now and I love it. We know from our data that consumers are looking online before, during, and after an IRL shopping experience, and they’re increasingly interested in aligning with brands that deliver much more than a product inside a package.

What’s your go-to coffee order? Latte, please! And yes, I still take it with whole milk—grass-fed if available!

Worst piece of advice you’ve received? Your experience is the best indication of your future. This has been a maxim I’ve been contradicting since the beginning of my business career: I went from being a children’s museum curator before business school to working at Procter & Gamble, the leading CPG marketing company in the world, right after—a move that I was made to believe was near-impossible. It was only made possible because P&G didn’t believe it either. They didn’t hire me for my previous experience, but instead they hired me for my mind, my appetite to learn, my ingenuity, and my capability to grow.

What was your favorite retail product when you were 15, and what’s your favorite retail product now? When I was 15, I was a super fan of Seventeen magazine. It felt like a conduit to a life beyond my four walls, a way to learn about others, and a way to safely explore adolescence and young womanhood. Turns out, I was learning a lot about content marketing and marketing in the process. One of my favorite brands right now, besides Health-Ade, is Kodiak Cakes. I love how they’ve taken protein in pancakes and created a lifestyle brand out of it.