Sonoma State Names Damien Wilson To New Wine Business Chair

ROHNERT PARK, CALIFORNIA -- Sonoma State University announces today the inaugural appointment of Dr. Damien Wilson to the newly-established Hamel Family Faculty Chair in Wine Business.

Here's why this matters, whether your interest is wine or business or academia or research:

• The Chair is funded by a $3 million gift from George and Pamela Hamel and family, who themselves are Sonoma-based vintners. The Chair raises the profile of Sonoma State as a global leader of wine business education, even within the already-competitive market of major universities nearby in Davis and Fresno, California.

• Wilson's new role as the Faculty Chair reinforces the international nature of the wine industry today. The Australian-born Wilson has been, since 2008, the Director of the Wine Business programs at the Burgundy School of Business in Dijon, France. He begins his appointment in the School of Business and Economics at Sonoma State in August 2015.

Bridging a Cultural Divide

One of the most interesting touch points of Wilson's new role may be its opportunity to harmonize the strengths of Old World and New World philosophies toward wine and wine business.

"The U.S. is one of a very few countries that has consistently grown both value and volume over the past few years," Wilson said. "The management of growth is better, either by design of the sector or by wineries' focus on long-term goals."

France, by contrast, is in some ways at the other end of the scale.

"As a winemaking country France believes that its image is sacrosanct almost at the expense of anything else," Wilson observed. "That makes it difficult to maintain and achieve volume. Some wineries would rather go bankrupt than make changes in order to make money."

One of Wilson's challenges in the new role will be to bridge that gap, even while many producers in the wine sector seem to fall heavily on one side or the other. "It's as though you’re either authentic and passionate, or you’re some mindless commercially oriented shareholder who just wants profit maximization," he said. "The best wine producers in the world have a great balance between the two. The wine sector has to learn good business skills, which it hasn’t done enough of."

Supplying the Pipeline

Another of Wilson's challenges will be to ensure the industry has the talent it needs in order to stay competitive, and that talent will reflect the international nature of the industry. Wilson has attracted students from more than 40 different countries to the Master's program he currently directs in Dijon.

"Wine is a global phenomenon, and Damien will be very helpful for identifying people and businesses from all over the world," said William Silver, dean of Sonoma State's School of Business and Economics. "The perspective on teaching wine business has tended to be very parochial, U.S.-centric and even California-centric. But it's changing. This is part of the maturation of the wine industry here."

Digital Realities

One of Wilson's specializations is digital marketing, and I will be curious to see how he engages the challenging gap in the U.S. between capability and implementation. The functionalities exist and in some cases have been pioneered by companies in California, but I suspect that Wilson will be surprised by lower-than-expected adoption rates.

It's an issue he's certainly seen before, in France and Australia and elsewhere.

"Many wineries don't know even the basic elements of their customer database," Wilson said. "They collect information, but can't tell you their churn rate, or their response rate to mail outs, or the delay between mail-out and page hits."

Understanding the gap between capability and implementation -- and what to do about it -- is one area that the new Chair gives Wilson the space and leverage to figure out.

Competitive Edge

Sonoma State's academic programs in wine have consistently focused on strategy, sales and marketing, and business and finance, which is a concentration that sets them apart from nearby schools.

"Other universities have chosen historically to focus primarily on enology and viticulture, and they teach people how to grow great grapes and make a wonderful bottle of wine," said Silver. "But that isn't the same as the business of wine. At some point you have to sell that wine and attract customers and retain them."

Brand loyalty is one of the topics that are front of mind for the board of directors -- many of whom are themselves winemakers -- that helps to steer Sonoma State's program. Brand loyalty is an important factor for maintaining a competitive edge. Feedback from the board indicates other prominent factors, including environmental sustainability, issues of water and climate change, reaching the Millennial market, and creating interest in wine in Hispanic markets.

It's a long and growing to-do list for Wilson to tackle.

"Too often, new graduates get out into the business world and fall into the trap of the wine's image [instead of] dealing with the reality," Wilson said. "With critical mass, and the opportunities that open up with this Chair, Sonoma State will be poised to empower graduates to implement the change. And help practitioners catch up with the theory."

Cathy Huyghe writes about the business and politics of the wine industry. Find her online at cathyhuyghe.com and on Twitter @cathyhuyghe.