Deborah Golden has launched a new company called appropriately Golden & Company, which she describes as a beverage marketing, event planning and brand and partnership development firm.

This follows the news that her four-year collaboration with Bacardi USA on the Bacardi Cruise Competition has come to an end and she is looking to new opportunities.

She said: ‘It has been a rewarding experience leading the Bacardi Cruise Competition to its current success and gratifying to see its popularity evolve over the past four years with the global cruise industry. Although I will no longer be involved with the Bacardi Cruise Competition, I trust that my contribution to strengthening Bacardi's partnerships with cruise and ferry lines, will lead to other opportunities to work together.’

Looking forward, Golden said she has now revamped her business: ‘From individual food and beverage marketing and enrichment programmes, to full-blown events, my new firm can provide the ideas and concepts, as well as execute every detail,’ she says.

She adds that as part of this new venture, programmes such as nationally televised competitions that shine the spotlight on cruise industry bartenders and chefs, are on the horizon.

In her portfolio for the future, Golden says her new company will be able to offer the following: Travel retail sales and marketing; bar concept development and execution, including new build installations; beverage marketing; brand development and brand re-positioning; event planning; food and beverage enrichment programming; food and wine festival organisation and execution; food and travel network TV programme development; journalist food and wine; wine education programming and staff training; and wine lists of distinction creation.

For more information Deborah can be contacted at (786) 271-1550 or [email protected]