Master of the deal

Jeff Rubenstein (BSBA ‘01) honed his passion for brand building at the University of Florida and used it to scale some of the nation’s fastest-growing beverage and snack brands.

In 1999, Jeff Rubenstein (BSBA ‘01) took a job as a student brand manager for Coca-Cola. In the role, he was charged with convincing students and organizations on the University of Florida campus to buy the famous red and white-branded beverage for their events. 

This seemingly random encounter with a recruiter for the position outside of Jennings Hall would set the foundation for Rubenstein’s multi-decade career in the beverage and snack industry and the nearly $9 billion in total enterprise value he’s generated for companies like Poppi Soda, Vita Coco coconut water, Health-Ade kombucha and more. 

“That job as a student brand manager at Coke and all of the steps in my career after, I owe it all to the University of Florida and my experience there,” he said. 

Born business-minded

Originally from Boston, Rubenstein made his way to Florida on his father’s advice. For the best college experience, one with strong academics, athletics and fun, Rubenstein needed to go to the South. Having one of the best football teams in the nation at the time, led by Steve Spurrier, made the University of Florida an easy choice. 

The only college he applied to, Rubenstein knew he wanted to study business at the University of Florida. An early job in sales showed Rubenstein his passion for making and closing deals. 

“In high school, I worked at a sneaker store called Olympia Sports, selling rollerblades,” he recalled. “The company had an incentive program where if you sold a customer accessories like knee pads or a helmet, you earned prizes. I ended up becoming ‘Employee of the Quarter’ because of that. It was my first taste of success.”

In selling rollerblades, Rubenstein learned how to recognize people’s needs and identify the gaps in those needs, building his dealmaking skills. 

“It was all about recognizing those incremental things that people could put into their basket,” he said. “It really was learning the art of selling.”

Building billion-dollar brands

After graduating from the University of Florida, Rubenstein continued to hone his brand building expertise in a full-time brand manager role with Coca-Cola at their Atlanta headquarters. After 5 years of large company experience, Rubenstein decided he wanted to focus on more entrepreneurial work. That focus pulled him to several up-and-coming brands that are now household names. 

At Vita Coco, Rubenstein was one of less than 10 employees at the 2003-start-up. Today, the company is valued at more than $3 billion. Rubenstein followed Vita Coco with stints at WTRMLN WTR and Health-Ade, both of which he helped scale and eventually sold. 

With three successful beverage company builds under his belt, Rubenstein was prepared for his next opportunity. In 2020, Rubenstein became the first employee and President at Poppi Soda, which was sold to PepsiCo this year for nearly $2 billion. 

“Beverages are a vehicle to connect people to a lifestyle,” he said. “While the liquid provides a functional benefit, what’s around the package matters just as much. All of the [brands I’ve worked for] transcend their category and connect with people emotionally.”

Future focused

For Rubenstein, the role he’s played in making each of the companies he’s worked with successful comes down to his forward focus when it comes to consumers. 

“It’s all about understanding where the consumer is going to be,” he said. “It’s just like that Wayne Gretzky quote about skating towards where the puck is going, not where it’s been.”

Where consumers are going, Rubenstein believes, is towards health-conscious snacks that satisfy hunger with filling micronutrients like protein. That’s why after his role with Poppi, Rubenstein took the helm at Khloud, a snack brand he co-founded with Khloe Kardashian. 

Khloud is currently the fastest-growing popcorn brand in America, and recently surpassed Doritos as the best-selling salty snack SKU at Target. The 8-month-old company will be in 29,000 retail doors by the spring of 2026, with more coming in the next year, along with new products and flavors.

“This is not your standard start-up,” Rubenstein said. “We’re already outperforming bigger players in the industry, raising capital from major names and have people with sophisticated experience joining the team. We believe that this could be the most disruptive salty snack in a generation and potentially the fastest in snack history to go from $0 to $100 million in sales.”

Rubenstein is keen to make that belief a reality by focusing on innovation, distribution and marketing. 

“We have to do more than just sell popcorn,” he said. “We have to transcend the snack space and become an emotional brand that consumers love.”