Our guest is Darren Marshall. Darren is the CEO of Smith Teamaker. Prior to Smith, he worked in high level roles at iconic companies such as Coca Cola and Steinway.

People have been drinking tea for centuries.

It is one of the oldest consumer products in the world.

Because tea has been around forever, the category as a whole is relatively sleepy.

The tea industry has only experienced low single digit growth on average over the past decade. But Smith Teamaker has bucked this slow growth trend by growing dramatically over the past five years under Darren’s leadership.

We have talked to founders on this podcast before. But the reason we wanted to talk to Darren was the opposite. He is not the founder of Smith Teamaker. He joined the company as CEO in 2018 and has overseen a period of transformation, growth, and adaptability, even through COVID.

Succeeding a founder as CEO can be challenging. It’s not easy to step into a founder-led business and keep excitement and momentum going. Yet that is exactly what Darren has done, and much more. Today the business is much healthier and growing more quickly than ever before.

Topics Discussed:

• Introduction from Peter and Keeley
• The founding story of Smith Tea
• Succeeding a founder and how to navigate it and how Darren approached his first few months on the job
• Best and worst parts of working at Coca Cola
• Darren’s time at Steinway and the ins and outs of the luxury piano market
• How the company is growing through agility, innovation, and culture
• Maintaining a business in central Portland despite the property crime
• The ownership of the company and the outlook for the future
• Managing upward (i.e. to a board)
• Hiring practices
• Leadership
• Darren’s favorite cities
• Classical music recommendations
• Book recommendation
• Darren’t current tea order
• Debrief on the interview from Keeley and Peter