Early BrewDog investor Keith Greggor has resigned as a director of the controversial brand, The Grocer can reveal.
The high-profile US investor, a drinks industry veteran and co-founder of investment firm The Griffin Group, first bought into the brand in 2009, at the time calling BrewDog a “game-changing” player in the drinks industry.
He has now stepped down but remains a shareholder in the business.
Confirming Greggor’s departure, a BrewDog spokesman said he had “been a director since 2009 and decided to step down to focus on his other business interests”.
Greggor “has made a huge contribution to the business in that time, during which we’ve grown to be the global leader in craft beer, with over 100 bars and four hotels worldwide”, he added.
“As we continue to evolve the board under the leadership of our chairman Allan Leighton in line with the UK corporate governance code, we expect to make other appointments to the board in due course.”
It comes as BrewDog is preparing to float on the stock market – it is reported to have appointed Freshfields as advisors with an eye to making its long-anticipated IPO last month.
However the brewer has been mired in controversy over the past year, ever since an open letter from a group of former and current employees called Punks With Purpose surfaced, alleging a “culture of fear” at the brewer and drawing its workplace practices into question.
This was followed by a BBC documentary last month that amplified the claims and questioned BrewDog’s cherished environmental credentials.
BrewDog CEO James Watt called the documentary a “malicious caricature” of BrewDog in a LinkedIn post this month and said BrewDog would lodge an official complaint with the BBC and Ofcom.
Such controversies have not stopped BrewDog from an ambitious expansion into soft drinks, with the rollout of its new POP Soda range last week.
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