Our team
Essi Liljama
Partner
Essi was born and raised in Finland, but moved to New York after finding her dream job with a natural food distributor. They were focusing on small and emerging brands in the tough New York City market. She helped several brands become successful, but also saw so many companies that didn't make it.
For the past decade she has worked with interesting start-ups and scaling companies and gained experience nationwide with all major retailers, as well as the important independent channel.
She loves better-for-you products and lives a holistically healthy lifestyle. Clean supplements, organic/bio-dynamic food and innovation/new ingredients are all part of her day to day interests. She is a mom of 2 and knows how to get things done with limited resources and tight schedules.
Essi hopes to see more Nordic companies entering the US market, and more female founders starting to take up space in the industry.
Laura Harrison
Partner
Laura began her career nearly 15 years ago in CPG working for a specialty distributor in NYC. She sold and merchandised some of the top natural food brands into independent retailers around the city.
From there, she moved to the brand side and has worked with start up companies ever since. Her focus is companies pre-launch to $5m in sales.
While she specializes in sales, her experience with many different companies has given her a unique perspective into all areas of the business, including operations, finance, and marketing.
She has a true love for food and before the CPG world she worked for a farm, a coffee roaster, a green coffee importer, and a nonprofit focused on food access.