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WSWA Shares Key Insights from Access LIVE: Market Drivers – Wholesale Leaders Blazing a Path to Success

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Leaders from the Nation’s Largest Distributors Discuss Innovation, Growth and the Future of the Industry

DENVER, Feb. 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — This week, the LIVE Stage at Access LIVE 2025 was the setting for one of the most anticipated discussions of the week: “Wholesaler Power Hour — Market Drivers: Wholesale Leaders Blazing a Path to Success.” Featuring three of the most influential CEOs in beverage alcohol distribution, the session provided Access LIVE 2025 attendees with insights into current challenges and opportunities shaping the industry.

Moderated by Michael Bilello, Executive Vice President of Strategic Communications and Marketing for Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA), the panel featured Tom Bené, CEO of Breakthru Beverage Group; Wayne Chaplin, CEO of Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits; and Nick Mehall, CEO of Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC). Together, these visionaries manage a substantial share of wine and spirits distribution in the U.S., making their insights invaluable to suppliers, wholesalers and retailers.

Defining Success in a Changing Market
Bilello kicked off the discussion by asking each panelist to define what success looks like in today’s market landscape.

“When I first joined the industry, success was about learning,” said Chaplin. “Today, it’s about building for the future — ensuring the next generation of leaders is ready to go.” He emphasized how his company is focused on delivering a long-term vision for logistics, insights and customer engagement, rather than just short-term sales growth.

Mehall highlighted the importance of growing market share and building brands. “We are not just order processors,” he reminded the distributors in the room. “We are responsible for building brands and creating sustainable growth. It’s not about quick wins — it’s about how we support and build brands over time.”

For Bené, success is about being the best partner — for suppliers, retailers and employees alike. “At Breakthru, our goal is to be the distributor of choice. That means delivering on supplier expectations, being the number one service provider for customers, and creating an environment where our team members thrive.”

Innovation and the Role of Technology
Innovation is often discussed as a phenomenon of the future, but the panelists offered concrete examples of how their companies are using technology today to enhance business operations.

For example, Mehall emphasized optimizing automation and data-driven decision-making. “We are using AI and analytics to empower our salesforce with real-time insights. When they prep for an account, they now know what’s trending in that market, what’s selling down the road and how they can maximize impact.” RNDC’s investments in data and digital tools such as its eCommerce platform, eRNDC and digital accelerator, REDI, he said, are helping suppliers, retailers, and customers alike make smarter decisions in the evolving eCommerce landscape.

Chaplin discussed how his company’s digital platform is revolutionizing the way customers engage with wholesalers. “We invested in this platform before COVID, and today it’s a $4 billion digital marketplace. It’s making it easier for customers to work with us, and it provides insights that are game-changing for our suppliers.” He also emphasized how AI-driven supply chain improvements help drive efficiency as labor costs rise.

Regarding innovation, Bené underscored the role of technology in enhancing supplier relationships and improving brand-building strategies. “We have invested heavily in consumer insights—not just tracking where the market is today, but predicting where it’s going next,” he noted.

Market Disruptions and Changing Consumer Preferences
The panel addressed major shifts in consumer behavior, from premiumization and sustainability to the rise of ready-to-drink cocktails (RTDs).

Bené explained how Breakthru is helping brands navigate these trends. “It’s no longer enough to just get products on shelves. We need to help retailers understand the products that will resonate with their consumers and help them connect with the right brands,” he said.

Chaplin took a broader view, stressing that wholesalers must balance appealing to emerging consumers while maintaining loyalty among existing customers. “You don’t want to drive your father’s Buick, and you don’t want to drink your father’s cocktail. Consumer preferences change, and we need to be flexible enough to change with them.”

The Future of Leadership
Toward the end of the session, Bilello steered the discussion to the ways wholesalers are handling ongoing challenges, from economic uncertainty to supply chain disruptions.

Mehall advised companies to pay attention on the aspects of their business that they can control. “We are all facing challenges, but the key is to focus on what we can influence — building relationships, ensuring operational excellence, and making smart long-term investments.” He encouraged suppliers and retailers to avoid reactionary decision-making and instead take a measured, data-driven approach.

Chaplin highlighted the importance of transparency and trust in leadership. “If you want to lead effectively, you need to be honest — with your employees, your suppliers and your customers,” he said. “Change is constant, and the best companies embrace it head-on.” Open communication is especially important, he said, when addressing industry uncertainty.

Collaboration Is Key
As the session ended, Bilello asked each panelist to share advice for navigating the future.

Bené focused on talent development: “Our people are our greatest asset. Investing in training and development ensures that we have the best, most knowledgeable sales teams in the business.” His company has launched new training initiatives, including its Accelerate program, designed to equip employees with the skills needed to navigate an evolving market.

“Suppliers are our partners, not just our clients,” Chaplin added, going on to stress the importance of long-term supplier relationships. “Our success depends on their success, and we have to work together to build brands that will stand the test of time.”

For his part, Mehall closed with a call to action. “The industry is changing,” he said, “but the best companies see change as an opportunity. If you embrace innovation, stay flexible and invest in your people, the future is bright.”

The Wholesaler Power Hour reinforced a powerful theme — collaboration between wholesalers, suppliers and retailers is the key to long-term success in the beverage alcohol industry. And that, after all, is precisely what Access LIVE is all about.

For more insights from Access LIVE 2025, visit https://accesslive.wswa.org/.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Michael Bilello
Executive Vice President, Strategic Communications & Marketing                                                                           
michael@wswa.org | (202) 716-4805

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SOURCE Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America

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Workday Adaptive Planning Achieves FedRAMP Moderate Authorization to Support Federal Workforce and Budget Planning

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New Milestone Helps Federal Agencies Plan Workforce and Budgets in One Secure, Modern System

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Workday Government, a wholly owned subsidiary of Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT, today announced that Workday Adaptive Planning has achieved FedRAMP Authorization at the Moderate Impact Level. The authorization confirms that Workday Adaptive Planning meets the security and compliance standards required to handle sensitive, unclassified federal data, giving agencies a secure, compliant foundation for modern planning.

Federal agencies are under pressure to do more with less, manage costs, and maintain clear records of their decisions. Yet disconnected data, legacy systems, and manual spreadsheet work can make it hard to understand how organizational decisions affect the workforce. Workday Adaptive Planning helps agencies modernize planning by bringing workforce planning, budgeting, and forecasting together so agencies can plan with connected workforce and financial data.

“Federal agencies must align their people, funding, and priorities to deliver their missions effectively,” said Lynn Martin, general manager, Workday Government. “With FedRAMP Moderate authorization, Workday Adaptive Planning gives agencies the secure foundation they need to unify workforce and financial planning. This clarity allows leaders to evaluate trade-offs, allocate resources with impact, and prepare confidently for what lies ahead.”

With Workday Adaptive Planning, agencies can model and assess the workforce implications of organizational change, such as hiring freezes, budget reductions, or reorganizations, to understand the potential effects on headcount, costs, project timelines, and mission readiness. Agencies can also use workforce data to identify talent trends and skills gaps. Finance teams can evaluate competing program requests, allocate costs across funds and programs, monitor budgets throughout the procurement lifecycle, and identify potential overruns earlier. Built-in audit capabilities and FIPS 140-3 compliant security help agencies strengthen fiscal discipline, maintain compliance, and make faster, better-informed decisions.

“Federal agencies need a planning tool they can trust to protect their data and still move fast,” said Ben Pierce, general manager, Workday Adaptive Planning. “With FedRAMP authorization, Workday Adaptive Planning gives them a secure, modern way to make budgeting and workforce planning less painful and a lot more useful.”

As part of Workday Government Cloud, Workday Adaptive Planning works alongside Workday human capital management and financial solutions, helping agencies plan with connected data. By bringing planning into the same platform that powers HR and finance, Workday Government helps agencies move beyond systems that simply record work to a modern, connected foundation for planning safely and collaboratively.

Workday Adaptive Planning is expected to be available to Workday Government customers in early 2027.

For More Information

Explore how Workday Adaptive Planning gives government organizations the power to plan, budget, and forecast the future here.Learn about the mission of Workday Government here.

About Workday Government
Workday Government is a wholly owned subsidiary of Workday, the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT. Workday Government is dedicated to serving the U.S. government by unifying HR and finance on one intelligent platform with AI at the core, empowering agencies at every level with the clarity, confidence, and insights they need to adapt quickly, make better decisions, and deliver on their missions. Workday Government supports a range of agencies across the civilian, defense, and intelligence communities. For more information about Workday Government, visit workday.com/federal. For more information about Workday visit workday.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding Workday’s plans, beliefs, and expectations. These forward-looking statements are based only on currently available information and our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. If the risks materialize, assumptions prove incorrect, or we experience unexpected changes in circumstances, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements, and therefore you should not rely on any forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to, risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including our most recent report on Form 10-Q or Form 10-K and other reports that we have filed and will file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Workday assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release, except as required by law.

Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced in this document, our website, or other press releases or public statements that are not currently available are subject to change at Workday’s discretion and may not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Workday services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features, and functions that are currently available.

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SOURCE Workday Inc.

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Ontinue Wins Gold Stevie® Award for Advancing the Future of Managed Security Operations

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Recognition Honors the Innovation Behind Ontinue’s Agentic SOC, Where AI Agents And Expert Cyber Defenders Work Together to Deliver Autonomous, Governed Security Operations

ZURICH, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ontinue, a leading MXDR partner providing nonstop managed security operations through its Agentic SOC, today announced it received a Gold Stevie® for Technology Excellence Award, recognizing the innovation behind its ION MXDR platform and Agentic SOC. The award was presented in the New Product of the Year – Information Technology (Cybersecurity) category, honoring Ontinue’s continued advancement of AI-powered security operations.

Ontinue was recognized for pioneering the Agentic SOC, a new operating model that treats security decision-making itself as software: governed, measurable, and built to scale with attackers who now operate at machine speed. Rather than layering AI onto existing workflows, Ontinue re-engineered its ION MXDR platform around a multi-agent architecture, with specialized agents spanning threat hunting, investigation, response, and posture hardening, that reason over each customer’s accumulated context and progressively take on more decision-making as trust is earned, while Ontinue’s Cyber Defenders retain governance and accountability throughout.

Ontinue defines an Agentic SOC as a security operations model in which software agents progressively assume responsibility for security decisions and actions, under continuous human governance, using accumulated context, policy, and learned behavior. In December 2024, this model went live in production for every ION MXDR customer, extending autonomous investigation to Tier 2-level incidents for the first time in the industry. The result is a platform that acts less like a tool and more like a team.

Ontinue’s Agentic SOC, by the numbers:

Autonomously investigates incidents within minutesCuts mean time to investigate by 50 percentResolves 99.5 percent of incidents without customer involvementDrives median response time for high-severity incidents under nine minutesPre-approves 97 percent of response actions, based on trust earned directly from customers

For Ontinue’s customers, that translates directly into business outcomes, such has stronger Secure Scores, security teams freed from alert fatigue, and hundreds of analyst hours returned to work that actually moves the business forward.

“The cybersecurity industry doesn’t need more AI features, it needs a fundamentally better way to operate security,” said Moritz Mann, Chief Executive Officer at Ontinue. “This recognition validates the work our teams have done over the past two years to transform AI from an assistant into a trusted operational capability. It’s recognition of an operating model that is already delivering measurable outcomes for customers every day.”

“We congratulate all of the winners in the third annual Stevie® Awards for Technology Excellence for their outstanding achievements,” said Stevie Awards President Maggie Miller. “Their innovations are helping shape the future of technology across every industry, and we look forward to celebrating their success on October 28.”

The Stevie Awards for Technology Excellence celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of individuals, teams, and organizations shaping the future of technology across all industry sectors. More than 700 nominations from organizations of all sizes in 37 nations and territories were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of tech-related categories. More than 180 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year’s honorees.

Details about the Stevie Awards for Technology Excellence and the list of 2026 Stevie winners are available at http://Tech.StevieAwards.com.

About Ontinue
As a leading provider of AI-powered managed security operations, Ontinue is on a mission to give every organization the freedom to focus on what they do best; by making nonstop security excellence accessible, not just aspirational. By combining advanced AI with deep human expertise, Ontinue delivers managed security operations that are tailored to each organization’s unique environment, operational needs, and risk profile.

Ontinue’s ION SecOps Platform integrates AI-driven insights, automation, and real-time collaboration to continuously prevent, detect, and respond to threats. With deep expertise in Microsoft security technologies, Ontinue helps customers maximize the value of their existing investments while achieving stronger, more scalable security outcomes.

Continuous protection. AI-powered Nonstop SecOps. That’s Ontinue.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in nine programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Technology Excellence and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

CONTACT: Alison Raymond, araymond@ontinue.com 

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SOURCE Ontinue

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New Harris Poll and Ruth AI Study: 81% of Americans Would Let an AI Agent Handle Part of Their Job Search

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Nearly half would let AI negotiate their salary, while 76% have never heard that AI can provide biased career guidance

SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Artificial intelligence has become a mainstream source of career and financial advice for American workers, according to a national survey of 2,131 U.S. adults conducted by The Harris Poll in collaboration with Ruth AI, the AI career strategist built for women.

The full study, The Trust Gap, is available at https://ruthapp.ai/research and has already drawn coverage from Fast Company.

Nearly half of Americans (45%) have used an AI platform such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini for career or work-related advice. That rises to 66% of Millennials and 63% of Gen Z. One in three U.S. adults has used AI for advice about money at work, including salary, raises, bonuses, or negotiating pay.

Americans are also increasingly willing to let AI act on their behalf. Eighty-one percent would be comfortable having an AI agent handle at least one part of a job search, climbing to 90% of Millennials. A majority would let AI search for jobs (67%), conduct pre-interview research (67%), update their resume (65%), or apply for jobs outright (55%). Nearly half would let AI negotiate their benefits (49%) or salary (47%).

Yet awareness of the technology’s documented limitations remains low. Three in four Americans (76%) had never heard that independent research has found AI can produce biased career and salary guidance. Seventy-two percent agree that AI can sound confident even when its advice turns out to be wrong.

“Americans are handing AI some of the most consequential decisions of their working lives, from the job search to the salary ask, while most have never heard that the guidance can carry bias,” said Valerie Chapman, founder and CEO of Ruth AI. “We are delegating faster than we are asking questions. The responsibility now falls on the people building AI to earn the trust users are already giving it.”

About the Survey

The survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll from June 11-13, 2026, among a nationally representative sample of 2,131 U.S. adults, including 420 Gen Z adults, 620 Millennials, 519 Gen X adults, and 572 Baby Boomers. Data were weighted to the U.S. general adult population. Some questions were asked only of respondents who had used AI for the relevant purpose. References to research on biased AI guidance refer to external academic research (Sorokovikova, Chizhov, Eremenko & Yamshchikov, 2025; arXiv:2506.10491) and are not findings measured by this survey.

About The Harris Poll Thought Leadership Practice

Building on more than 60 years of experience pulsing societal opinion, The Harris Poll Thought Leadership Practice designs research that is credible, creative, and culturally relevant, driving thought leadership and uncovering trends for today’s biggest brands.

About Ruth AI

Ruth AI is an AI career strategist built for women, on a mission to close the $1.6 trillion gender wage gap. Based in San Francisco, Ruth AI is building a suite of AI agents that help women build personal brands, negotiate their worth, and launch their businesses. Learn more at https://ruthapp.ai.

Media Contact

Valerie Chapman
Founder and CEO, Ruth AI
419380@email4pr.com
786-375-1110

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SOURCE Ruth AI

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