“Plum will transform wine the way Nespresso did with coffee.”
– Oscar Henquet, Managing Director, Rudd Oakville Estate
We started with a single goal: to change to way wine is served to match the way we live. Our vision was simple: deliver a fully automatic appliance that perfectly preserves and chills wine so we can enjoy it one glass at a time.
It began with a simple question.
If we could wake up every morning and have the perfect cup of coffee on demand, why couldn’t we have the perfect glass of wine in the evening?
We were tired of wanting a glass but not wanting to waste the bottle, or pouring good wine down the drain because it had been open too long. Some nights we wanted a glass of red and our partner wanted white, but we didn’t want to open two bottles. And we were frustrated with waiting for our wine to reach serving temperature, and trying to keep it there.
We wanted to enjoy each glass just as the winemaker intended. So we set out to build an appliance that was beautiful enough to look great in our living room or on our kitchen counter, and advanced enough to fully automate preservation and cooling. We wanted it to be easy enough to use that it would become a part of our routine.
For love of wine™.
Leadership
SENIOR EXECUTIVE TEAM
Michael Traub
CEO
Michael Traub is a seasoned executive with decades of global experience across sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution, and finance in the consumer durables and home appliance industries. Traub is the former CEO of Serta Simmons Bedding, the leading bedding manufacturer in North America, where he orchestrated the merger with direct-to-consumer mattress brand, Tuft & Needle. During his leadership tenure as CEO and Board Member at Serta Simmons Bedding, he led the company through the most significant transformation in its history.
Prior to that, he served as President and CEO of BSH Home Appliances for North America, which includes the Bosch, Thermador and Gaggenau brands, where he led the development of award-winning products and dramatically increased market share. In addition to his role as CEO of BSH Home Appliances Corporation in North America, Michael also served as a member of the Board of Directors for BSH in the United States and Chairman of the Board in Canada. Traub was the President and CEO of BSH’s Latin America division, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he restructured its sales and industrial footprint. Prior to that he held several leadership positions at BSH in Europe and Asia Pacific.
David Koretz
David Koretz is the Founder, Chairman & Chief Product Officer of Plum, the company delivering wine by the glass in luxury homes and hotel rooms around the World.
David was previously the Founder & CEO of Mykonos Software, which was acquired by Juniper Networks in 2012 for $80 million. Under his leadership, Mykonos was awarded the Wall Street Journal Innovation Award. Following the company’s acquisition, he served as the Corporate VP of Products & Strategy for Juniper’s security business.
David is the inventor of a dozen technology patents and was recognized as an innovator by Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Though he is technically (and spiritually) a college dropout, he has completed executive education at Harvard University, Stanford University and the Rochester Institute of Technology. David serves as Chairman of the Board of Adventive. He is a wine fanatic, instrument rated pilot, race car driver, aspiring nomad and lover of all things street food.
ANDREAS HANSEN
President
Andreas Hansen joins Plum with nearly two decades of appliance industry experience. Most recently, he served as the President of Liebherr Appliances for the Americas, for Liebherr Group, an $11 billion multinational manufacturer. There, he expanded Liebherr’s appliance business in the Americas, adding hundreds of new retail partners, and driving the region to record growth. Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles at BSH Home Appliance Group, Electrolux, The Legacy Companies, and La Cuisine International.
Justin Dopp
VP of Finance & Accounting
Justin is the VP of Finance & Accounting. Justin is responsible for leading Plum’s financial activities, including strategic planning, operations, accounting, reporting, investments, and overseeing all financial functions.
With more than 15 years of experience in the finance industry, Justin has previously held roles at a range of companies, including Senior Director of Finance & Treasurer for Chewy, Inc. and in various roles at Ryder System, Inc. and Huntington Bank. Justin’s expertise lies in financial planning and analysis, treasury, corporate strategy, risk management, and commercial finance.
Justin holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Toledo and an MBA from the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.
Also, Justin is a huge dog lover that enjoys the beach, sports and spending time with his family.
WEIJING LI
Weijing is the VP of Supply Chain at Plum, Inc. At Plum Weijing works with the product development team, marketing team to establish supply chain strategy to meet our production and customer demands.
Weijing came to Plum with 20+ years of global footage of supply chain management expertise in NPI sourcing, engineering and quality control. Being a Motorola Black Belt since 2011 encourages Weijing to be a problem solver and her background most serves Plum to deliver an innovative product to the market at cost, quality and time.
Weijing loves to watch soap operas in her spare time, she also enjoys Florida beach life.
MICHAEL DUMONT
Michael Dumont is the Director of Software Engineering for Plum, Inc. Michael is responsible for leading all software efforts across the appliance, applications and services, infrastructure, and manufacturing.
Travis Coleman
Travis is the Hardware Director at Plum, Inc. where he leads a team of Mechanical, Electrical, Quality, and Manufacturing Engineers in the product development of the Plum Wine Dispenser. He is responsible for new product introduction, product design, project management, engineering customer service, and current product quality. He is directly involved in every aspect of the product cycle from concept generation, product requirements, technical requirements, product certification, 3D modeling, prototyping, electro-mechanical requirements, product testing, tooling, and manufacturing. And then carrying through after product introduction to reduce manufacturing and field failure rates.
Before finding Plum, Travis' previous role was a Mechanical Engineering Technical Design Lead at Motorola LLC, a Division of Lenovo, designing next generation mid-tier cell phones. Travis also worked for Motorola Mobility, a division of Google Inc., as a Senior Staff Mechanical Engineer designing next generation low cost cell phones. Travis began his career while working for Motorola Inc. as a Mechanical Engineer in the Consumer, Government, and Industrial Solutions Sector designing mission critical public service two-way radios.
Aside from designing products, Travis spends his free time with his wife and daughter enjoying the outdoors (camping, fishing, scuba diving, and beach trips) as well as volunteering with the Girls Scouts of America.
OUR BOARD MEMBERS
David Koretz
David Koretz is the Founder, Chairman & Chief Product Officer of Plum, the company delivering wine by the glass in luxury homes and hotel rooms around the World.
David was previously the Founder & CEO of Mykonos Software, which was acquired by Juniper Networks in 2012 for $80 million. Under his leadership, Mykonos was awarded the Wall Street Journal Innovation Award. Following the company’s acquisition, he served as the Corporate VP of Products & Strategy for Juniper’s security business.
David is the inventor of a dozen technology patents and was recognized as an innovator by Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Though he is technically (and spiritually) a college dropout, he has completed executive education at Harvard University, Stanford University and the Rochester Institute of Technology. David serves as Chairman of the Board of Adventive. He is a wine fanatic, instrument rated pilot, race car driver, aspiring nomad and lover of all things street food.
Joe Berger
Entrepreneur turned VC. Founded Higher One while in college, 15+ years in various roles (CEO, CFO and Chairman) raised multiple rounds of angel and venture funding prior to taking the company public on NYSE. Board director at Plum, Map My Customers, and User Interviews.
Nawaf Bitar
Ben is the Founder and General Partner of Bling Capital. He has backed 10 "unicorn" billion dollar companies, with the best yet to come.
Previously, Ben was a General Partner at Khosla Ventures, where he focused on consumer, Internet, mobile, marketplace, SaaS and consumer health businesses. There, he led investments in Wattpad, Tapingo, Gitlab, True Accord, Plastiq, among many others.
Previously, Ben served in senior operating roles at Google, YouTube and Facebook. He also is an active angel investor with early stakes in Airtable, Lyft, Square, Palantir, Quora, Gusto, Udemy and others.
While at Google, he served as Senior Director of Search and Local Business Products, which included overseeing Google Images, Videos, Books, News and Finance. At YouTube, Ben was Senior Director of Partnerships and Platform, where he was responsible for music, movies, sports and news, as well as mobile, television and API partnerships. In his first role at Google, he was the founder and general manager of Google’s commerce group, which includes Google Wallet and Google Shopping.
At Facebook, Ben was the first director of the Facebook platform and oversaw the development of the company’s developer ecosystem. He also led product, marketing, developer operations and partner solutions. Ben played a crucial role in developing Facebook Connect, which helped grow Facebook across the web.
Ben holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) from UC Berkeley, and a M.S. and PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. Ben is a Department of Defense fellow and a recipient of UC Berkeley’s Bechtel Achievement Award, given to the top graduating senior from the College of Engineering.
Ben Ling
Joe Berger is President & CEO of BRE Hotels & Resorts, a non-listed real estate investment trust focused on the ownership of upscale, extended-stay and select-service hotels that generate attractive returns for stakeholders. He is responsible for the operations functions of 150+ hotels, containing a total of 30,000 guestrooms diversified among attractive markets, providing unmatched seamless solutions that propel our entrepreneurial clients to transcend local, national and global markets.
Prior to joining BRE Hotels & Resorts in September 2018, Mr. Berger served as Executive Vice President & President, Americas for Hilton. He was responsible for the operations functions of over 350 corporately managed Hilton hotels and Hilton Grand Vacation resorts throughout North, Central and South America.
Mr. Berger also served as Co-President of LXR Luxury Resorts and Hotels, where he managed the formation and growth of the enterprise for four years. Under his direction, the company repositioned several iconic properties to create one of the most profitable resort and hotel operations in the industry. Mr. Berger also served as President of Prime Hotels, which operated AmeriSuites, Wellesley Inns, and independent full-service hotels.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Berger served as Managing Director of the world-famous St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco and previously held positions as Area Managing Director North East for Starwood Hotels & Resorts as well as General Manager of both the Westin William Penn in Pittsburgh and the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. He has also worked internationally both in hotel operations and finance with Marriott Hotels and Resorts.
Mr. Berger is a graduate of Penn State, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus in finance. A native of Virginia, he currently resides in Florida with his family.
Mark Volchek
Nawaf Bitar is a Senior Advisor for Citadel Securities, where he is responsible for helping drive the firm’s efforts to continue attracting exceptional technology talent, managing external relationships and other initiatives.
Nawaf joined Citadel Securities in 2017 as Chief Information Officer, where he led all technology-related intiatives for the firm. Prior to joining Citadel Securities, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cloud Platform Business Unit at VMware. Before that, he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Security Business Unit at Juniper Networks. He has held senior technology roles at Cisco Systems, IronPort Systems and Network Appliance, and has also held roles at Silicon Graphics and Apollo Computer.
Nawaf is a member of the Board of Directors of Plum, Inc and is a Venture Partner at AllegisCyber Capital. He holds a bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Austin.
