Brendan Whitworth, who ran Bud Light through the 2023 crisis, leaves at the end of November; until a successor is named, the zone reports to Michel Doukeris
AB InBev, the parent of Ambev and the world's largest brewer, announced on Monday (November 2) the departure of Brendan Whitworth, chief executive of Anheuser-Busch, its North American operation. He leaves at the end of November to run Equinox, the New York luxury gym chain, according to Brewbound. The company said it will name the zone's new leader “in due course”; until then, the North American team reports directly to Michel Doukeris, AB InBev's global chief executive, who ran the same zone from 2018 to 2021.
Whitworth joined Anheuser-Busch in 2013, served as chief sales officer and took over as zone president in July 2021, replacing Doukeris when he moved up to the global role. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he is a former US Marine Corps officer and a longtime fitness enthusiast.
My sincere thanks to Brendan for his contributions to A-B InBev and for his partnership over the past 13 years.Michel Doukeris, AB InBev's chief executive, in a statement
Whitworth's time in charge was marked by the 2023 boycott of Bud Light, after a one-off promotion with influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman, led conservative consumers to abandon the brand. The beer never recovered: in off-premise retail tracked by Circana, Bud Light sales are down 7.8% in dollars and 8.8% in volume year to date through October 4, according to Brewbound.
The counterpoint is Michelob Ultra, which over the same period is up 6.4% in dollars, to US$ 2.98 billion, and 6.1% in volume. According to the Post-Dispatch, Michelob Ultra became the best-selling beer in the United States last year, and Anheuser-Busch holds 40% of the US non-alcoholic beer market. Overall, the company's sales in that retail channel are down 0.1% in dollars, to about US$ 10.7 billion, and 1.5% in volume.
The shrinkage goes back a long way. In ten years, Anheuser-Busch has shed about 30.8 million barrels in the US: from 94 million in 2015 to 63.4 million in 2025, according to a Beer Marketer's Insights tally cited by Brewbound. Over the same period, the company moved beyond beer: it bought the ready-to-drink cocktail brand Cutwater in 2019, the vodka seltzer Nütrl in 2020 and, this year, a controlling stake in BeatBox Beverages.
Last week, AB InBev released its third-quarter results, with beer volume practically flat worldwide and a drop of almost 17% in China, according to the Post-Dispatch.
Bebidário's catalog includes Budweiser, Michelob Ultra and Budweiser Zero, three Anheuser-Busch brands.
Sources: Brewbound (November 2, 2026), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via News Tribune (November 4, 2026).
