Erin Newkirk Chief Marketing and Brand Officer Caribou Coffee
Erin Newkirk has spent over 30 years building profitable consumer businesses that improve the world. An early adopter of Environmental Social Governance (ESG), Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEI&B), and digital enablement, Newkirk has held several executive leadership roles at the intersection of building strong consumer brands that drive healthy returns.
Erin currently serves as the Chief Brand & Marketing Officer for Caribou Coffee. She and her team are accountable for how Caribou’s brand comes to life across all customer and consumer touchpoints while keeping team, guests, and global responsibility as their central guideposts.
With over 770 owned and franchised coffeehouses in 11 countries, as well as thriving national CPG, Foodservice, and Office Coffee businesses, Caribou Coffee is the lead growth story in the Panera Brands portfolio of companies, on track to launch hundreds of new locations in the next three years.
Erin’s brand-management career began at General Mills, after earning an MBA at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. In 2005, Newkirk co founded Red Stamp, a digital correspondence app.
With over 2 million users and 10 million cards sent, Red Stamp was best known for its award-winning mobile app and was successfully acquired in 2013 by Taylor Corporation, one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. Newkirk stayed on as Red Stamp’s CEO until 2016, managing both Red Stamp and a new cross-brand, consumer category initiative.
After leaving Red Stamp, Erin served as the founding chief marketing officer to raise $160M in a Series B for health insurance startup Bright Health and advised meal-kit company Local Crate on their 2018/19 home delivery-to-retail transformation to gain national distribution.
Erin is a founding and active member of the Minneapolis start-up community. Enabling powerful connections between companies and start-ups to promote innovation and responsibility, while working at/with companies of all sizes to sustainably scale. Erin is an active speaker, mentor, advisor, and board member. An advocate of global stewardship, Erin and her husband enjoy traveling the world to visit family and friends, including her son who is enrolled in the international business program at Northeastern University School of Business (N.U. IN) in Fall 2023.