April 7/Seattle/Business Wire -- Jones Soda Co. announced that its board of directors has appointed William R. Meissner as the company's new president and chief executive officer.

Meissner is a veteran in the beverage industry, and brings to the company a track record of brand building and rapid revenue growth, having taken several products from ideation through commercialization. He served most recently as president of Talking Rain Beverage, a 21-year-old, privately held, beverage company. From 2004 to 2008, he was chief marketing officer of Fuze Beverages, a new-age category brand leader and division of Coca Cola North America. Prior to that,  Meissner held other senior-level positions in the new age beverage category, including brand director and director of brand development with SoBe Beverages, a division of Pepsi Cola North America, as well as vce president of sales and Marketing of the startup venture SoBe Chocolate. Meissner began his career with Tetra Pak Inc., a private multinational consumer beverage-packaging firm based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

"We're very excited to offer Bill the leadership of Jones at this critical time. Bill's disciplined approach to brand and market development, combined with his high energy and entrepreneurial management style, is just what the company needs as we move to capitalize on the great opportunities that we have worked so hard here at Jones to develop over the past several months," said Matt Kellogg, director of Jones Soda.

Meissner commented, "Jones is unquestionably the most exciting brand in beverage today. The company has made difficult yet significant moves over the past two years to prepare itself for a new future of growth and profitability. What you will see going forward, we're calling "Jones 2.0," which is a new version of a great idea that seeks to advance the company's enterprise value to match its traditionally strong brand value."

From the April 12, 2010, Prepared Foods E-dition