Zamora Co has appointed Mike Howard and André Duarte as the heads of its North American and Latin American businesses, respectively.
Howard (below) has been appointed director of the Licor 43 owner’s North American ‘cluster’, which includes Canada and the US, a post he took up last month, according to LinkedIn. He joined Zamora following almost one-and-a-half years as president of Stoli Group’s North America division. Prior to that, he was CCO at agave-based spirits company Altos Planos Collective and founded Texan business Southwest Spirits & Wine.
At the same time, Duarte (below) joins Zamora as Latin America cluster director, with a remit that encompasses South America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. His move follows just over 10 years at Brown-Forman, most recently as the senior public affairs manager for the Jack Daniel’s owner’s Caribbean, Central & South America region.
Duarte previously spent 12 years at William Grant & Sons as country manager for several Latin American markets, and has also put in time at Mark Anthony Group and AB-InBev-owned Cia Cervejaria Brahma in Brazil.
Madrid-headquartered Zamora said the appointments “strengthen [the company’s] international management model by bringing decision-making and commercial execution closer to local markets and consumers”.
CEO Javier Pijoan added: “Our international scale requires combining global vision with local execution. The addition of André and Mike brings two leaders with deep industry expertise to accelerate our growth within our ‘One Agile Global Company’ model, a formula that is delivering excellent results.”
Global Drinks Intel has asked Zamora whether these two roles are new, and who the pair will report in to.
Reporting its full-year 2025 results in July, the company said its sales had declined by low single digits for the second consecutive year, dipping 2% to EUR255m (then-US$291.4m). Export sales accounted for 54.4% of Zamora’s business last year.
