Bio
Stephen Von Oehsen (aka “SVO”) joined Southern Wine and Spirits of America, Inc. (Miami) in 2005 as Vice President-Strategy & Business Development. In 2009, he was promoted to Senior Vice President, Strategy & Business Development. With the combination of Southern and Glazer’s in 2016, Stephen was appointed Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, LLC (Southern Glazer’s) Senior Vice President, Office of Strategic Management (OSM).
Stephen’s current role responsibilities include working integrally with the senior leadership team to chart the strategic course of the company, pursue major business development opportunities through expanded supplier and customer relationships—with over $10 billion in incremental annual revenue growth related to these activities over the past two decades—and managing and supporting strategic initiatives through his internal OSM consulting team of 20 for improved business growth, process efficiency and effectiveness.
OSM also designs, provides the content for and manages the execution of the company’s Leadership Meetings as well as the Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO) for management, oversight and tracking of strategic initiative prioritization, budgeting and progress. In its nearly 20-year existence, OSM has attracted 25 talented professionals from outside the company who OSM has developed, promoted and retained at the company in senior executive roles. This is Stephen’s proudest achievement—stewarding talent for both the current and ongoing success of the company. The retention rate for talent he has recruited into the company over his 20-year tenure is 90%.
In 2019, Stephen was appointed as the first Professor and Executive in Residence at Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management—reflecting the close partnership between Southern Glazer’s and the Chaplin School and his work with Dean Michael Cheng on the school’s Identity, Purpose, Vision and Strategy. Since then, Stephen has led the curriculum design and delivery of two classes—a one-credit POD on the wine and spirits value chain named From Barrell to Back Bar and a three-credit, required, senior seminar on Hospitality | Strategic | Leadership.
Stephen has served as a member of the FIU-Chaplin School Dean’s Executive Advisory Board (EAB) since 2018, and was a Co-Founder and Charter Board Member of the Alliance for Hospitality Equity and Diversity (AHED; 2020 - 24).
In addition, Stephen is a founding member of the Miami Chapter of Outthinker Networks—a global chief strategy Officer (CSO) peer network for CSOs committed to staying ahead of the pace of disruption—and hosted and presented his CSO Stages of Excellence framework at Outthinker’s most significant CSO Summit to-date at FIU-Chaplin in February 2024. He and two colleagues also were guests of an Outthinker podcast entitled The Unexpected Role of the Strategy Office (The Unexpected Role of the Strategy Office - The Chief Strategy Officer Podcast | Podcast on Spotify) which outlines his approach to and results from cultivating and nurturing Human Ingenuity.
From his master’s degree thesis in US presidential foreign policy analysis and decision making through to his corporate and organizational strategy work today, Stephen has extensive experience on data,- values- and collective-intelligence-driven strategic decision making—including the active use of dynamic scenario planning and wargaming to create bespoke case studies for his internal and extended-enterprise clients.
Before joining Southern, Stephen held several positions in the public and private sectors, including Principal at Kearney (Chicago; 1998-2005) and Senior Manager at CSC Index management consultants (Chicago; 1994-1998); Executive Director of the Society for International Development (Washington, DC; 1988-1992); and Legislative Assistant to a United States Representative (Washington, DC; 1987-1988).
Stephen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Dartmouth College (1986); a Master of Science degree in International Affairs from the London School of Economics (LSE; 1987); and a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (1994). Stephen also has completed his Master Sommelier Level 1 certification (2014), and Southern Glazer’s Preeminent Leadership Program at Harvard Business School (2017 and 2022).
Born in Manhattan and raised in Katonah, New York, Stephen is married to Cindy—and the proud father to Stender, Evan and Lucas. In his spare time, he enjoys reading fiction and non-fiction alike; domestic and international travel; both street food and fine dining; smoking, grilling, cooking and baking with his three sons; pairing wine with his culinary creations—sharing both with friends and neighbors alike. Stephen’s most enduring hobby is aerophilately—commenced in his early childhood with his sister and father’s guidance and encouragement and resulting a half century later in a truly world-class collection of air mail stamps, historic covers and ephemera.