Cory Rothschild left Gatorade in November 2018 to join the much smaller Cresco Labs as head of brand marketing. He is now the cannabis company’s senior VP of marketing, overseeing all marketing including for its retail arm, Sunnyside.
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On paper, “my job was ‘the’ job,” Rothschild, 36, says of his role as Gatorade's brand director, which followed work revamping sister line Propel. Still, after graduating from Harvard Business School and spending years working to improve results for mainstream consumer packaged goods brands, Rothschild was eager to take on a new challenge.
“I’m very motivated by the feeling like you can impact a lot of people’s lives by the work that you do and the products that you sell,” he says. And he calls it “an honor” to work on the company’s projects tied to eliminating the systemic racism tied to cannabis.
Rothschild envisions Cresco, which has eight brands in its portfolio, growing to be seen as the Bud Light or Tylenol of cannabis. Working on making Cresco’s brands stand out in the burgeoning space is “a marketer’s dream challenge,” he says.