Kara Rubin

Kara is a better-for-you consumer goods industry leader with over two decades of clean-label, sustainable retail execution and brand building experience. Driven by a fascination with food and how it is grown, raised, and distributed; a deeply held desire to bring better, cleaner food to more and more people; and 20 years of strategic and operational food retail experience, she is dedicated to helping brands that do right by people and the planet thrive.

Currently, she is providing guidance and strategic thinking to brands both as a Strategic Advisor at JPG Resources and as Co-Founder & Principal of Makor Partners, where she helps shepherd brands based outside the US as they approach the market here. Prior to this advisory work, she was part of the leadership team at JUST Water, an early entrant to the sustainable bottled-water category. At JUST, she served as Vice President of Brand & Product Strategy where she oversaw all marketing and product development initiatives. She also spent a decade leading one of the largest regional business units for Whole Foods Market in the United States, the Northeast Region grocery business, which included the company’s highest volume stores in the US. While at Whole Foods, she worked closely with partners ranging from small, local entrepreneurs to large-scale, broadly recognized brands to build their businesses strategically in the region and nationally. Kara has also done other independent strategic advisory work with clean-label brands and natural-channel retailers previously.

 Kara holds degrees from Duke University and the University of Michigan Business School (now the Stephen M. Ross School of Business). She is a member of the Board of Directors of Naturally New York, where she chairs the marketing committee. And she is a Venture Partner at NextGen Venture Partners. Kara speaks often at food industry and nutrition conferences, including Project Nosh, Bev Net Live and Food Vision USA. She is a guest lecturer at the NYU College of Food, Nutrition and Public Health and the Institute for Culinary Education. Kara and her family live in New York City, and she loves nothing more than baking cookies with her two young kids.