Surfside Names Christina Stella SVP, Adult Beverage to Accelerate Category Growth

Advertising veteran joins Surfside to deepen supplier, distributor, and retailer partnerships across the Adult Beverage ecosystem

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, August 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Surfside, the operating system for the retail majority, announced today that Christina Stella has joined the company as SVP, Adult Beverage. In this role, Stella will lead Surfside’s Adult Beverage division, overseeing category strategy and growth while deepening partnerships across suppliers, distributors, retailers and agencies. Her appointment comes as Surfside continues to scale its Adult Beverage offering around three core capabilities: unique first-party purchase data, onsite and offsite media activation across digital and in-store environments, and measurement designed to connect advertising exposure to real-world commerce outcomes.

Stella joins Surfside from Provi, where she spent five years helping build the company’s advertising business from the ground up, most recently serving as SVP, Supplier Partnerships. In that role, she worked closely with many of the beverage alcohol industry’s leading suppliers, distributors, and retailers, developing data-driven marketing solutions that connected brands with retail buyers and helped suppliers influence purchasing decisions closer to the point of purchase. Earlier in her career, Stella held roles at Instacart, BuzzFeed, and Blis, building more than 15 years of experience across digital media, advertising technology, commerce, and strategic partnerships.

“Surfside’s Adult Beverage division is one of the fastest-growing parts of the business, with 134% year-over-year growth in H1 2026. “Christina was brought in specifically to accelerate that momentum,” said Jon Lowen, Co-CEO of Surfside. "She has spent the last five years building commerce media infrastructure in one of the most complex retail categories there is. She understands the operators, the data, and the measurement gap. That is exactly what our Adult Beverage business needs next."

Stella's mandate at Surfside is to help make the independent and retail channel more addressable, measurable, and valuable to Suppliers. While a significant share of Adult Beverage purchases happen through independent liquor stores and specialty retailers, those environments have historically been fragmented and difficult for brands to reach and measure at scale.

Surfside is building the data and media infrastructure to help close that gap, giving brands greater ability to identify and reach relevant consumers, influence shopping behavior across digital and physical environments, and understand the business outcomes their advertising is driving.

“After working closely with many of the industry’s leading suppliers, I saw firsthand how quickly expectations around marketing effectiveness have evolved,” Stella said. “Brands aren’t just looking to reach consumers anymore. They want to understand who they’re reaching, influence purchase behavior, and measure the impact of every marketing dollar. What excited me about Surfside is the opportunity to connect those pieces across a part of the market that has historically been incredibly fragmented. We have an opportunity to help brands think differently about the independent channel and build a much clearer connection between media investment and commerce outcomes.

Surfside currently works with more than 100 leading Adult Beverage suppliers, including Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Moët Hennessy, Sapporo, and The Macallan, across a network of more than 8,000 independent, regional, and specialty beer, wine, and spirits retailers. With Stella leading the division, Surfside plans to continue expanding its Adult Beverage capabilities and partnerships while helping brands move beyond traditional media metrics toward a clearer, data-driven understanding of how advertising influences consumer behavior and commerce outcomes across the category.

For more information, visit www.surfside.io.

About Surfside
Surfside is the operating system built for the retail majority, powering retail media and closed-loop measurement across more than 8,000 independent, regional, and specialty retailers. By aggregating fragmented retail supply into a single, addressable network and unifying first-party data, audience creation, media activation, and measurement into one platform, Surfside enables brands and retailers to reach verified shoppers and measure performance based on real outcomes.

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Sharp Pen Media
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