Comments on: New Vine’s Meltdown: Summary of Act One, Still Waiting For Godot

By: John

John — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:54:21 +0000

I agree whole heartedly with the comments above as to the leadership (or lack thereof) of Carol Thompson. She was the negative turning point on all levels and the reason for continued turnover, confusion, and dissention internally at New Vine.

Our CEO, Katie Schumcker-Hoertkorn, was indeed a very nice person, although not a very effective CEO. Unfortunately she allowed the hire of an old friend, Carol, and then gave the reins over, and the rest is history.

Whatever comes of this debacle, it is imperative the Ms. Thompson returns to the East Coast, and leaves the wine industry to recover from what has surely felt a little like the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

By: A Concerned Ex-Employee

A Concerned Ex-Employee — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:17:13 +0000

Freight Train! YOU ARE RIGHT! NVL had more VP’s, Directors and Managers than pickers and packers!

As a side note, the skeletal crew that was left behind has now been sworned into secresy-they have probably been threatened-and will not even let the rest of us know if they got paid or not. –Which for a fact, from a leaky source, they did not get paid.

If I was in there shoes–I wouldnt of showed up for work today!

By: Freight Train

Freight Train — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:41:37 +0000

People are missing the point. NVL had a ridiculous pricing structure whereby the nickeled and dimed clients to oblivion. They also had this stupid management structure whereby it \seemed\ 80% of the company was an executive.

If IB thinks they can revive this thing they are nuts. If they are nuts, the first thing they need to do is show leadership and fire the entire C-level structure. Everybody gone. Now. After that, they need to streamline the system and price fairly to an industry already under incredible economic stress. I know I know, they create \economic efficiency\ which is a fancy way of saying they are another middleman. A less fancy way is called bull shit.

If they execute 100% on every step of the restructure (nearly impossible) then maybe they have a slim chance of making it (+-5%)

Just let it die. Make sure not to do it again.

By: With-held

With-held — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:20:16 +0000

I would like to add that the current employees that are still left at NVL HAVE not been paid as of yet. Since pay-day was Friday the 5th, I would say if I were you I’d start getting concerned. I think Carol is making more promises she has no intention on keeping. Someone needs to realize that as long as Carol is in charge of New Vine, it doesn’t stand a chance. The reason the company has gone so far under in the past two years, is a direct result of her lack of leadership. See the light people! If New Vine has any hope of coming out of this with any pieces in-tact, you NEED to get a new leader!

By: A Concerned Ex-employee.

A Concerned Ex-employee. — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:03:02 +0000

And to Katie’s comment on previous posts……….I considere Katie to be a great classy lady…….but, she put her company in the hands of the wrong person-Carol-COO. She had not been a COO before and made way too many wrong decisions. She tried to make NVL too big, too fast, getting bigger buildings and hiring way too many DIRECTOR’s and VP’s–spending money where it didn’t need to be spent instead of looking at the talent that she already had within her current employees.

By: A Concerned Ex-employee.

A Concerned Ex-employee. — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:52:11 +0000

I have to agree that you have provided great coverage. I would add that former NVL employees have not recieved any communication as to when they would recived their last week’s check and vacation pay. It is also a rumor that the skeleton crew left at NVL have not gotten paid also. Some of us have called, sent emails left voicemails but yet no resposes. This should be of no surprise since Carol Thompson (COO) spent money irresposibly, micromanaged everyone and needed to have control of every situation. So, not only did she run this company to the ground, but also, there was a lack of respect, responsability and loyalty to customers and employees.

By: Steve Bachmann

Steve Bachmann — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:46:18 +0000

Great coverage of this story! It seems to be that the final outcome here will be dictated by Amazon’s preference for a particular acquirer, whether it be IBG or someone else, for the simple reason that the remaining NVL business WITH Amazon’s future revenues is worth more than WITHOUT it.