Our Team
Bill Atchinson
Bill has his MBA from Wharton and spent 15 years as a marketing executive managing some of America’s largest consumer brands within leading CPG companies including Miller Brewing, ConAgra/Healthy Choice, Dial, Corning and General Foods. He led brand teams that developed four new $100 million brands and
won four New Product of the Year awards.
Building on that experience, Bill formed Growth Ventures in 1995 as a growth strategy consulting service and affiliated with the BDN consultancy. For the past 25 years he has been associated with leading growth brands and established a proven track record of building brands and businesses.
In 2016, Bill partnered with Steve Hughes when he founded the Sunrise Strategic Partners, a growth capital group based in Boulder. He works closely with the portfolio companies as an Advisor responsible for growth strategies and brand development.
After living in Arizona for over 20 years, Bill and his wife Deb moved to Los Angeles, California to be closer to their four children. Bill’s favorite hobbies include mountain biking, hiking, soccer, investing, and outdoor photography.
Steve Hughes
One of the leading business builders in the natural and organic food and beverage industry
Co-founder and Managing Director of Sunrise Strategic Partners in 2016 – leading outcomes include Kodiak and VitalFarms.
The Sunrise portfolio delivered a three year CAGR of +35% through 2021
Founder, Chairman and CEO of Boulder Brands which included Earth Balance, EVOL, Udi’s, and Glutino
Previously worked in leadership positions on Celestial Seasonings, Silk, Tropicana and Conagra, where he led the team that launched Healthy Choice in 1988
Over the past 30+ years, from Healthy Choice to Sunrise created $9-10B in market value
Bill Hooper
One of the best brand builders and consumer experts, Bill was the former President of Doner Advertising and has run his own independent
marketing consultancy for over thirty years.
Bill was a member of the Board of Directors of Boulder Brands from its inception in 2007 until 2015. In addition, he served as senior marketing advisor to the Boulder Brands management team. Presently, he is an Advisor to Sunrise Strategic Partners and served on the Kodiak Board of Directors prior to its sale.
Bill’s background has been primarily in advertising agency management and consulting with emphasis on consumer product brands.
He played key roles in driving marketing strategy for Healthy Choice, Tropicana, Celestial Seasonings, Silk, Evol, Earth Balance, Udi's Gluten Free and Glutino.
Rob Atchinson
Rob is the Business Development Associate at Growth Ventures. For the past few years Rob has done exploratory research that helped to frame growth strategy development, brand positioning, and new product innovation for a series of clients.
Among the consumer brands that Rob has worked with include Kodiak, Kill Cliff, Little Secrets, KT Tape, Sweet Loren’s, YumEarth, and Maple Hill. Through this experience, he has developed real talent for assessing “up and coming” brands, competitive brand positioning, and new product development.
SliceMR is a global data collection firm that excels in quantitative research solutions. Powered by passionate and experienced professionals with deep industry knowledge at every level. SliceMR combines a broad panel of consumers and professional targets with a collaborative approach that covers survey programming, innovative insight tools, and data analytics.
Their ability to provide best in class research capabilities couples with a unique client centric approach that delivers comprehensive and timely results.
SliceMR is led by CEO Frank Hayden who has been a close research partner with Growth Ventures covering 100+ studies over the past 10 years.
Millennial consumers are driving a massive shift from legacy brands and businesses to emerging companies that better align with their values
Sunrise Strategic Partners provides growth expertise and capital to the next generation of brand disruptors to facilitate and accelerate change
Proven track record of success by partnering with great people to build great brands
World-class leaders with deep experience growing brands, operating businesses and achieving liquidity, in both the private and public markets
2021 Portfolio Sales Growth: +25%
Leading Outcomes: Kodiak and Vital Farms
Provides Growth Strategy Consulting and Insights that build strong, competitive brands
Role with Sunrise Strategic Partners is to help portfolio companies realize their upside growth potential as brands and businesses
Our expertise is brand building. Past experience includes the development of four $100M new products prior to starting Growth Ventures. For over 25 years, Growth Ventures has helped both large and small companies build stronger brands and drive accelerated growth performance.
We combine years of best practices from the combined SSP team with advanced consumer insights to create breakout growth strategies together with our partner companies.