NICHOLAS MANOLELIS
CFO
Liquid Death
Since joining Liquid Death, CFO Nick Manolelis has grown the accounting and finance team from four people to 13 today, including technical accounting, financial reporting, and FP&A. In addition he has hired legal and IT resources to support the growing business. He has uplifted the company’s legal and IT infrastructure as well, hiring the company’s first general counsel and first business system resource.
As CFO of Liquid Death, Manolelis has completed two fundraising rounds, raising over $100 million in additional financing. He has completed a multiyear financial statement cleanup, including technical accounting implementations and controls assessments. He has also executed first-year audits with PwC covering FY20/21 with an 12/31/19 opening balance sheet audit and is in the process of executing the 2022 audit.
Manolelis led the company’s NetSuite implementation and other processes and modules to accelerate the monthly and quarterly close in line with public company execution levels. He managed international expansion, with operations spun up London. He led the analysis driving the decision to onshore US production. Liquid Death previously imported all product in Austria; however, with the elevated cost of ocean freight during the pandemic, plans to onshore production were ultimately accelerated in May of 2022. Manolelis helped manage the transition of new pack sizes and form factors with major retailers in the US, while still selling through the remaining Austrian product driving a material margin uplift in FY23 that will allow the company to achieve best-in-class gross margins for the beverage industry.