Amanda Kent Benjamin spends her time at the cross-section of wine business and strategy – as both a sixth generation winegrower in her family’s wine business, and as a leader at Bain & Company with expertise in driving commercial excellence and customer strategies for global consumer products and technology companies.

Raised in vineyards in the historic Livermore Valley, Amanda was drawn to the wine industry at an early age. Some favorite childhood memories included learning how to prune and manage grape vines, applying capsules on the bottling line, and discussing wine aromas with the winemaking team. In 2013, Amanda was recruited by Bain & Company to drive growth strategies and initiatives with Fortune 500 management teams powered by deep analytical problem-solving and hand-in-hand client delivery. Throughout her 10-year Bain career, Amanda has continued to keep the wine industry close at hand. As part of Bain's externship program, Amanda joined the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance for 6 months, where she worked to design and launch the sustainable product certification program and worked hands-on with wineries to build sustainability into their business models and operations. During her MBA program, Amanda continued to strengthen her wine business experience by serving as president of the GSB ‘Wine Circle,’ working as a Teaching Assistant for the Global Wine Business course, and launching a wine education app as part of a startup incubator program. After grad school, Amanda continued to develop expertise in Bain’s Consumer Products, Technology, and Customer practices with significant experience leading go-to-market and customer strategy work for her clients. In recent years, Amanda led marketing strategy development for an international Wine & Spirits player and the 10-year strategy update for the Department of Viticulture & Enology at UC Davis, as well as advised on multiple due diligence projects in the wine sector. Throughout this time, Amanda has also led numerous strategy efforts at the Darcie Kent Estate Winery focused on wine club retention and tasting room sales optimization, and helped launch a next-generation wine brand incubator, Almost Famous Wine Company.

From 2009-2013, Amanda attended Vanderbilt University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in Economics and History, with minors in Financial Economics and Corporate Strategy. In 2018, she received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Beyond work, Amanda lives in Oakland, CA with her husband (Alex) and pandemic puppy (Sasha).