Her Story
About Samantha
Samantha Sepcic serves as Vice President of Operations and Sales at Adita, a family-owned winery in Tuscany, Italy, which she joined approximately two years ago. In this role, she manages sales across states including Florida and Texas with expansion into the Carolinas, handles logistics and importing of Italian wines, oversees Airbnb villa rentals, imports and sells olive oil, and leads marketing for wine tasting dinners and events. Sepcic earned a bachelor's degree in global supply chain and logistics management from the University of South Carolina and obtained a Greenbelt certification there. She previously worked in technology sales, hospital supply chain, finance, and at Amazon, drawing on those experiences to build the business from the ground up in new markets. She partners with the American Heart Association, where the company has raised over $250,000 through villa auctions and wine tastings. Sepcic values the flexibility of remote work and the work-life balance it provides while collaborating with her mother, balancing her realist and numbers-focused approach with her mother's visionary style. She attributes her success to combining skills from her diverse background in supply chain, sales, and logistics, and advises young women entering the industry to trust themselves and approach roles with confidence.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Samantha
01What do you attribute your success to?
I try to pull together all my strengths from past jobs in supply chain, sales, technology sales, hospital supply chain, finance and Amazon to apply to this startup wine industry. Being able to combine cold calling sales, international importing, logistics, and finance skills has been really useful even though they might not seem correlated at first.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
My mom taught me to zoom out to 10,000 feet and look at the bigger picture of where this could be in the next 3, 4, 5 years instead of getting stuck in the day-to-day details and saying this month that won't work.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Trust yourself and have confidence when coming into restaurants and dealing with mostly men in the industry as bartenders, owners, and managers. We might know the demographic better since women are often the ones ordering and shopping for wine, so come in knowing your product and don't feel like you can't be trusted even if you're the only woman in the room.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is navigating the legalities and red tape in the alcohol business with tiered systems where wine must go through importer, distributor, licensed retailer per state before reaching customers, with many people needing to get paid in between. It's more difficult than people realize but rewarding when expanding to new states and demographics.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Having flexibility to work remote with good work-life balance, being able to work with my mom who lives close by, and balancing our strengths where she is the dreamer and I am the realist and numbers person.
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