Jim Koch

Charles James Koch (/kʊk/ KUUK; born May 27, 1949)^[1][2][3] is an American entrepreneur, billionaire, and the co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company, the producers of Samuel Adams beer. Koch is widely considered to be a founding father of the American craft brewing movement.^[4]

Jim Koch
Jim Koch in 2013
Born	Charles James Koch (1949-05-27) May 27, 1949 (age 75) Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Education	Harvard University
Occupation	Businessman
Known for	Co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company
Spouses	Susan ​ (divorced)​ Cynthia Fisher ​ (m. 1994)​
Children	4

Early life

Koch was born in Cincinnati on May 27, 1949,^[2] one of four children born to German-American parents Charles and Dorothy Koch (née Kautz).^[1] Charles was a fifth-generation brewer.^[2] Koch earned a Bachelor of Arts, Juris Doctor, and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University.^[5]

Career

He is a former consultant with The Boston Consulting Group. He was formerly an Outward Bound instructor. In 1984, Koch co-founded the Boston Beer Company, the producers of Samuel Adams beer.^[6]

Koch took Boston Beer company public in 1995 and owns a 19.5% stake in the company, giving him a net-worth of over $1 billion. In 2023 he was ranked #1905 in Forbes Billionaires 2023.^[4]

In 2016, Koch published Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two, in which he discussed how he left his career as a management consultant to start his own brewery using his great-great-grandfather's recipe.^[7]

In August 2018, Koch said the corporate tax cut of 2017 helped to play a major role in making Boston Beer Company more competitive in regard to foreign competitors. Koch stated that "When I started Sam Adams, American beer was a joke, and it pissed me off. And now, American brewers make the best beer in the world. And the tax reform was a very big deal for all of us, because 85 percent of the beer made in the United States is owned by foreign companies."^[8][9]

Personal life

Koch's marriage to his first wife, Susan, ended around the time he started the Boston Beer Company.^[10][11] He remarried to entrepreneur Cynthia Fisher in 1994.^[12][5] He has two children from his first marriage and two from his second.^[13] They live in Newton, Massachusetts.^[14][15]

Koch is unrelated to Stone Brewing Co. cofounder Greg Koch.^[16]

Works cited

• Koch, James (2016). Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two. New York: Flatiron Books. ISBN 978-1-250-07050-0. LCCN 2015046334.