Michael Shoer is the Founder/Owner and Managing Partner of Victory Spirits Development (www.victoryspirits.com). Launched as a spirits industry business development firm helping young distilleries grow with sales, marketing, and funding development. One of the company's initiatives is The Bourbon Bond Funds, which since 2019 have enabled individual investors to participate in the appreciation of bourbon by financing new fill and aging of bulk spirits to be released when mature. This has led to the company's ability to now serve the bulk spirits needs of global brands and local craft distilleries through the Victory Spirits Marketplace which includes investor financed inventory, as well as inventories of other major funds, producers, and even some sources on this panel today.

Michael is a pioneer in a number of industries, from one of the founding producers at CNN and at the time, one of the youngest Executive Producers, to the creation of a content syndication company to serve the needs of local Television newsrooms with on-air and online content, to the launch of Ice Caters in 2004--the company that revolutionized how ice designs could be used to promote and market beverage and hospitality brands. That brand achieved nationwide distribution based largely on the impact of email marketing (before social advertising was even a thing). It was this confluence of content, visual and digital marketing, entrepreneurism, and the ability to create something out of nothing, that led to his invitation to join this panel today, along with so many he now knows and respects as colleagues in the spirits industry.