Constellation Brands to Invest $100 million in Female-Led Booze Brands
*By Conor White*
A gender gap persists in most industries, but among the most glaring examples of the disparity can be found in beverage manufacturing ー a business in which men make up roughly 80 percent of executives.
In order to close that gap, Constellation Brands ($STZ) has announced it will invest in female-founded beverage companies, beginning with Austin Cocktails and Vivify Beverages.
"We're excited to invest $100 million over the next ten 10 years in disruptive and innovative business in our space," said Mallika Monteiro, Constellation's chief growth officer.
"Women are the fastest-growing set of entrepreneurs in the U.S. today," Monteiro told Cheddar in an interview Friday. "Yet 2 percent \[in 2017\] of investor funding went to female-led businesses."
Constellation is hoping to shift that number ー but Monteiro said the company's efforts will go beyond a simple infusion of capital.
"We're bringing them into our network of expertise," Monteiro said. "Whether that is the network of relationships we have with our distributor partners, with our supply chain partners, and logistical partners."
For Monteiro, the decision was ultimately an easy one.
"This is an opportunity for us to double down on our commitment of diversity and inclusion," she said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/corona-maker-constellation-wants-women-to-disrupt-the-alcohol-industry).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
