Eighteen years ago, the seed of the idea formed of what was to become Chief Wine Officer. Starting as a family business comprised of two employees and a novel idea on how to transform the concept of business networking, we’ve now become a successful international company running 115+ events a year – live and virtual.

2020 has been a pivotal year for Chief Wine Officer, and its parent company, Chief Nation. And so, we thought we’d share a little snapshot of our history; how we started, how we grew, and what got us to where we are today.

Chief Wine Officer founders, David and Hayley Moore set up Riversix (now Chief Nation), initially helping clients understand, target and network within the financial services industry.

One winter, a family party – and subsequent Christmas wine tasting hosted by our accountant – sparked an idea…

Inspired by a concept that fused wine, business, networking and a “luxurious pub quiz”, David and Hayley pitched an idea to a few of their clients, received overwhelming buy-in, and began planning the first event. Focused on C-level relationship building, the Chief Wine Officer brand just fell into place.

The Chief Wine Officer Headline Dinner for 50+ guests was launched, with tables sponsored by multiple clients at a time. They quickly became so popular that soon many of them were asking if they could put on their own bespoke event. At this point the brand took off.

Our client base had been growing steadily and by this point, we were working with several global tech players. One of our bigger clients spread the word amongst their US team who asked if we could emulate the CWO in the States. It had always been Hayley and David’s dream to expand globally, and very soon they found themselves on the road.

Chief Wine Officer’s first State-side event took place in September of 2006, exactly a year after the UK debut. After weeks of hard work, the whole family were hosting the first of many dinners on that side of the pond.

From then, the requests for wine tasting events started rolling in. As a result, the team was padded out meet the growing demand, and before we knew it, we were delivering over 60 events per year both at home and abroad.

Little did we know when we started working with Cisco, that the business relationship we developed over their campaign would prepare us for a unplanned global event seven years later… 

Cisco’s TelePresence product was the first piece of technology that allowed users to connect across locations via a super realistic virtual conference room. Our campaign with Cisco involved promoting this product.   

In true CWO fashion, we arranged a world-wide wine tasting for delegates from the US to Southeast Asia. Since then, we continued to work on a virtual offering of the CWO experience in the background, not knowing when the right time to launch it might be… 

The Cisco project had us connecting counties all around the globe, and suddenly we found ourselves generating attendees in European cities such as Paris, Zurich and Amsterdam. With dreams to become a global company, we thought this might be our chance to make a splash on the continent.

Luckily, English is spoken in most European cities, so we were able to start exporting our English language events to the likes of Amsterdam and Stockholm. And as demand spread across Europe, we expanded our team further to hire German and French speaking event specialists. We continue to build our European presence ever since.

Keen to cater our events to everyone, and to ensure our offering stayed fresh and relevant, we expanded on the Chief Wine Offer brand and introduced Chief Gin, Beer and Whiskey Officer! 

We partnered with some of the world’s most prestigious breweries and distilleries to bring our clients a selection of the finest beers, gins and whiskeys to enjoy alongside insightful networking events.  

Following the successful completion of a management buyout, managing directors Laura Porter, Richard Porter and Craig McCartney joined David and Hayley Moore in steering the company into the next era of B2B marketing.

With 50 years of combined experience, Laura, Richard and Craig have worked hard to successfully pivot and launch a series of virtual services in the wake of Covid-19.

In just three months we’ve won 24 new accounts, and we’re set to deliver 115+ events this year, compared to 85 in 2019.

By the start of 2020, we’ve accumulated two decades of experience in running bespoke business networking dinners.

Alongside that, our sister company Chief Nation had developed into a leading B2B marketing powerhouse delivering a multi-channelled array of B2B marketing services.

In response to the events of 2020, we’ve rolled out a series of virtual wine tasting events- having finally put what we’d learned in 2013 to good use. Rather than postpone live events, we pivoted, innovated and introduced CWO : DIGITAL.

This was an opportunity to combine Chief Wine Officer and Chief Nation’s strengths and bring business leaders together to spark meaningful c-level relationships, virtually.

And so, eighteen years after that seedling of an idea was formed, we’ve developed into a B2B powerhouse. We’ve established strong face-to-face relationship building on the Chief Wine Officer side, and we’ve expanded Chief Nation’s capabilities and excellence as a digital agency.

We’ve also grown from a family business of two to a 27 strong team of events, marketing and data experts.

Despite the challenges of recent months, we somehow stumbled on the right moment to fuse our skills into a new, timely offering, one which opens us up opportunities that were previously out of reach.

Our vision was to go global, to establish our place in as many countries as possible. While for now most of us find ourselves working from home, our virtual events have – in a way – achieved exactly that. Distance is no longer a hindrance to developing lasting business relationships. As long as you have a screen and a corkscrew, you’re all set.

While You’re Here

If you’re looking to connect with C-level prospects through a tailor-made networking experience get in touch today to discuss how we can help. Or, if you fancy attending one of our virtual events as a guest, head over to our events calendar and register your interest today.