Who is CEO of Anheuser-Busch? All-American boss of under-fire Bud Light owner earns $12M a year
When Anheuser-Busch’s CEO interviews potential recruits for the world’s largest brewing conglomerate, he has a favorite question.
“Tell me about a time when you didn’t succeed or things didn’t go as planned,” he likes to ask.
If Brendan Whitworth ever gets the same question, he now has plenty of material to draw from.
Whitworth, 46, has seen his biggest brand – Bud Light – swept by a storm of controversy since they teamed up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on April 1.
Mulvaney got her own special edition of the beer can to mark her transition year from male to female: a move that infuriated Bud Light drinkers and knocked $6 billion off Anheuser-Busch’s value. Factories in the United States were even hit with bomb threats during the upheaval.
Brendan Whitworth, 46, has been the CEO of Anheuser-Busch since July 2021. His company is now in the middle of a storm over their decision to partner with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney
Mulvaney herself made the announcement of the partnership with Bud Light on Instagram on April 1
In honor of Mulvaney’s first year of being openly transgender, Bud Light sent a can with her face printed on it
Whitworth issued this public statement on Friday, two weeks after the controversy
Whitworth released a statement on Friday stating: “It was never our intention to be part of a discussion that divides people.
‘It’s our job to bring people together over a beer.’
The decision to partner with Mulvaney was reportedly made by a low-ranking marketing executive, but that didn’t stop Whitworth and his vice president of marketing for Bud Light, Alissa Heinerscheid, from a torrent of criticism.
But few are better positioned to draw from a life of challenging situations than Whitworth – an “all-American hero” and medic-in-training who joined the Marines – where he was a star athlete – and the CIA, which spies in the Middle East recruited and treated before going to Harvard Business School.
Whitworth has lived in the United States and has been a registered Republican for most of his life.
“I felt lucky to have been born in the United States,” he said. “I felt like I had to pay that back — like I had a little bit of debt that I had to pay.”
Whitworth grew up in the Alapocas Woods area just outside Wilmington, Delaware – the son of a doctor, Michael Whitworth, and his wife, Sara.
He attended Salesianum School, a Catholic high school in Wilmington, and graduated in 1994, after leading the school’s football team to win the state championship. He was also diabolically academic, earning straight As in honors pre-calculus.
Whitworth can be seen in an article about the sporting and academic star in his local Delaware newspaper in the early 1990s
Whitworth qualified for the Ironman World Championship – an ultratriathlon held annually in Hawaii – but did not take his place, joining the CIA instead in 2001
Whitworth then decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and study medicine at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
But halfway through his college career, he changed his mind.
Having always admired military and government service, he decided he wanted to join the Marines, attend officer cadet school, and be commissioned as a lieutenant in his senior year.
Whitworth played high school football in Wilmington and Bucknell University in Pennsylvania
His grandfather worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he served under President Hoover, before leading training in Quantico, Virginia.
“That’s where a kind of attachment to serving the country came from,” Whitworth recalled Fox news in an interview in October.
At age 25, Whitworth, six feet tall and 185 pounds, was stationed at California’s Camp Pendleton and making headlines as an Ironman.
He ran the Marine Corp Marathon in a remarkable two hours and 55 minutes and qualified the following year for the Ironman World Championship – an ultratriathlon held annually in Hawaii.
However, Whitworth did not take his place: by then he had decided to leave the Marines after three years and join the CIA.
In the aftermath of 9/11, from 2001 to 2006, Whitworth worked in some of the most difficult places in the world at the height of the War on Terror: Pakistan, Tunisia, Iraq.
His LinkedIn describes his role as: “Specializing in recruiting and dealing with human resources with access to vital information that has prevented and disrupted terrorist threats.”
Whitworth addresses an Anheuser-Busch meeting
The CEO of Anheuser-Busch is seen during a Belgian economic mission to the US in June 2022. AB-InBev, Anheuser-Busch’s parent company, is based in Belgium
His family was proud, but worried.
His older sister Kelty – an All-American swimmer at Ursuline Academy in Delaware, then attending Harvard – told him it was time to get out.
“While she appreciated what I had done, as any protective sibling would be, she constantly said, ‘OK, you’ve done it for eight years now… How about you prioritize yourself?’ Fox business.
Whitworth described his sister as having “a strong, well-founded opinion” in his life.
Reluctantly, he agreed, but on the condition that he leave only if he could go to Harvard like her.
“There are some great business schools out there, but I always felt like she had something to do with me as well,” he explained.
“So I thought, ‘Okay, fine, I’ll go over there.'”
He prepared for his Graduate Management Admission Test while in Baghdad, studying late at night after his CIA services ended.
In 2006 he arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Whitworth continued to play sports, particularly rugby.
But he focused on his studies and after graduating he got an excellent job at PepsiCo.
In 2013, he joined AB-Inbev – the Belgium-based brewing company, created from the merger of the American company Anheuser-Busch with breweries around the world.
He rose through the ranks leading trade marketing, category and sales technology divisions before becoming US Chief Sales Officer in November 2017 and ultimately US CEO.
“It’s hard to find a few things more closely associated with the United States of America than Anheuser-Busch,” he said upon his appointment in July 2021.
Whitworth can be seen in a Budweiser hoodie greeting drinkers at a trade show
Whitworth and his wife live in a $7 million apartment in this Manhattan mansion
Whitworth lives in Manhattan but regularly commutes to Anheuser-Busch’s St. Louis headquarters
“That passion for the country was naturally tied to a passion for Anheuser-Busch, and I grew up drinking Budweiser.
“I took Budweiser to college parties, and I didn’t even care what was in the keg.”
Whitworth credits his Marine training with helping him rise to the top of corporate America.
“They put you through a process of screening you, to see if you have the capabilities to lead Marines,” he said.
“Then they give you what they think are the right principles of leadership and then they give you a platoon of Marines, and you have to go and see if that all works.
“That early experience gave me an appreciation that I’ve continued to build on — what it means to connect with, sell to, sell to someone from Philadelphia or someone from San Antonio.”
It certainly made him a rich man.
Whitworth reportedly earns $12 million a year and lives with his wife Meredith in a $7 million apartment on the Upper East Side, close to Central Park.
He will draw on all his experience as he helps Anheuser-Busch weather Mulvaney’s storm.
“None of us get it right all the time. We’re not supposed to do that,’ he said told Business Insiderin the November 2021 interview about his hiring technique.
“But I want to see people get it wrong and then quickly move on to try and get it right.”