Amanda Kroener

I graduated with my accounting degree from Tennessee Tech University in 2010 and started my career in energy efficiency, where I slowly worked myself up over 7 years from bookkeeper to vice president and lead project manager. After having my first child, I decided to take a step back to a more traditional 9-to-5 office job, so I took an accounting manager role at a large automotive dealership group. Over the next 7 years, I grew from accounting manager to VP of Operations for our internal bank, and then to CFO. My husband and I launched CarBliss in 2019 after we couldn't find a seltzer that fit our keto lifestyle - we wanted something with no sugar and no carbs but with great flavor. We built the business from the ground up with the goal of having it at our wedding, so we launched one week before we got married so we could share it with our friends and family. We've chosen to grow backyard to backyard rather than going national overnight, making sure we have team members in each market supporting our distributors and retailers, with a big investment in samplings so we can be very local with our consumers. We're developing relationships and focusing on it being a people business. My husband and I insist on being at every new launch - we travel a ton, going bar to bar, meeting with managers and owners, sharing our product and story, doing keynote speeches, and mentoring other people in the industry. I just left corporate America at the beginning of 2025 to come into the business full-time instead of just in the evenings, and I also just finished my MBA from Concordia here in Wisconsin in August 2025. My core is still accounting and finance, though I've had to do a lot more sales than I've ever had to do in the past.