Jay Wissink

Jay is also President of The Aristos Group. He founded The Aristos Group in 1998 after an extensive career in marketing and management positions in food companies, and also in agency management.

Prior to the Aristos Group, Jay was President and COO of Mega Marketing Communications, a Minneapolis-based advertising agency that grew by 300% in sales and profits over the 6+ years of his leadership, with over 25 food industry clients.

Jay was EVP at Michael Foods where he was the General Manager for the Sunnyside Division, a new venture acquisition that achieved 30% sales increases under Jay’s leadership. He was also VP Marketing for the Crystal Farms Division and managed the development and introduction of over 50 new refrigerated food products as well as successfully building 8 new distribution businesses nationwide for 300+ products.

Prior to Michael Foods, Jay worked for the Campbell Soup Company where he was the Business Director of the $1+ billion condensed soup business. Jay achieved a 15% increase in brand profitability on this mature brand with new products, advertising, promotion and pricing strategies including the introduction of Special Request, Red & White RTS and microwave cup soup product lines.

Earlier, Jay was VP of Marketing & Corporate R&D for GoodMark Foods where he introduced over 30 new products nationwide and also assisted in the IPO of the company.

Jay started his marketing career at General Mills as Product Manager on the Total and Kix cereal brands as well as new products and Betty Crocker potato brands. Among his notable accomplishments was reversing Total cereal’s volume decline and leading the brand to all time share and volume gains behind new creative, media and product improvements.

Jay’s other entrepreneurial ventures include Cherie Boutique Francaise, a new retail concept of luxury personal care and accessories which has been named by the Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine as Best Twin Cities Boutique for several years running. Earlier in his career Jay was a chain restaurant operator, was president of a land development company, and owned a construction firm specializing in the design and building of custom single- and multi-family residences and light commercial buildings.

Jay and his wife Diane are governors in Opportunity International, a global non-profit organization which builds special banks, offers business training, and provides micro-loans to millions of chronically poor entrepreneurs in over 28 developing nations to help them start or expand a business.

Jay has an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the University of Michigan and a BS in Industrial Administration (Economics and Construction Engineering) from Iowa State University.

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