The Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) has elected Ugo Fiorenzo, managing director at Campari America, as chair of the national trade association during its summer board of directors meeting at the DISCUS Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Fiorenzo succeeds Clarkson Hine, Beam Suntory SVP of corporate communications and public affairs, who has chaired the council since July 2020.

Fiorenzo is an industry veteran with nearly three decades of work in the beverage alcohol sector, including more than 15 years with Campari Group. As managing director of Campari America, he led the acceleration of the business by strengthening distributor partnerships and overseeing several transformational projects, the company says, including the relocation of the U.S. head office from San Francisco to New York City in 2018.

“DISCUS will be in very good hands with Ugo leading the board and providing strategic counsel to the association during this time of sustained progress in the beverage alcohol industry,” says Hine. “The spirits sector is embarking on a number of critical initiatives from making the industry more inclusive and diverse, to ensuring more equitable treatment in the marketplace for spirits products and our consumers. Ugo’s deep knowledge of the global spirits industry will put us on a path for continued growth and success while staying true to our collective commitment to responsibility.”

Before joining Campari America in 2015, Fiorenzo held multiple leadership positions within the company at Campari Group in Italy and J. Wray & Nephew, Campari Group’s subsidiary in Jamaica, as well as senior marketing and sales positions at several other global alcohol beverage companies, including SABMiller and Peroni.