In this episode, Kara Rubin shares her extensive experience in the grocery industry, from her start at Whole Foods to her work supporting emerging brands and developing supply chains. She discusses the evolution of food retail, category management, talent development, and the importance of community and mutual support in the industry.
Kara is 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 nearly 15 years of strategic and operational food retail experience. Kara has deep roots guiding retail strategy and working with brands ranging across the category spectrum.
Kara is a food and retail industry veteran who is the Vice President of Brand & Product Strategy at JUST Goods, Inc., producer of sustainably packaged and responsibly sourced consumer products, including JUST water. Prior to joining JUST, she spent a decade leading one of the largest regional business units for Whole Foods Market in the United States. Kara has also done independent strategic advisory work with clean-label brands and natural-channel retailers.
Holding degrees from both Duke University and the University of Michigan Business School (now the Stephen M. Ross School of Business),Kara serves on the Corporate Advisory Council of Just Capital, a nonprofit that measures corporate performance based on the public’s definition of just behavior. She’s been an advisor to the Rockefeller Foundation on the topic of food waste and she is a guest lecturer at the NYU College of Food, Nutrition and Public Health and the Institute for Culinary Education.
