Drinkabl Africa will hold a virtual press conference on 6 July 2026 to formally unveil The New Pour Summit ’26, the pan-African beverage intelligence event it is staging in Nairobi and online on 25 July. The briefing also carries the announcement of Walter Serem, Regional Manager for East Africa at Brand Finance, as the summit’s Chairman.
The press conference runs on Google Meet and is open to media professionals, industry leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators across the continent’s beverage sector. Start times vary by region: 11:00 for East Africa, 09:00 for West Africa, and 10:00 for South and North Africa. Media professionals who want to attend should RSVP to hello@drinkabl.media, and a media kit is available on request.
At the centre of that briefing is Serem’s appointment. He has led Brand Finance’s East Africa office since its Nairobi relaunch in 2020, working alongside Jeremy Sampson, Managing Director of Brand Finance Africa, on brand valuation, strategic brand management, technical valuations for audit purposes and sponsorship evaluation. He is a regular voice in the firm’s annual rankings of Kenya’s most valuable and strongest brands. His career runs more than two decades across communications and brand strategy at board level: before Brand Finance, he founded and led Interbrand East Africa and served as the Brand Union’s Kenya and East Africa custodian, and earlier still worked as an art director at Saatchi & Saatchi, Access Leo Burnett and Express DDB. His client list spans banking, education and manufacturing brands including CBA, Strathmore Business School, National Bank and Simba Saloon. In 2025, he won the Pan African Media Research Organisation’s Piet Smit Achiever of the Year award. A fuller profile sits on his LinkedIn page. Serem will also appear among the summit’s confirmed speakers, putting the event’s chairmanship in the hands of someone whose day job is valuing the same brands the summit is built to serve.
The summit itself carries the theme Liquid Resilience, centred on future-proofing beverage brands across what organisers describe as Africa’s volatile, uncertain and complex markets. The programme runs eight tracks, from market intelligence and route-to-market strategy to capital and investment, advertising, and brand positioning across generations. More than 20 speakers are confirmed, drawn from firms including EABL, Ipsos, Ogilvy Africa, WPP Scangroup and VML. Passes range from $30 for virtual access to $70 for in-person attendance, available through Selar or Mookh, with in-person seating capped. Full details on the programme and speaker lineup are on the summit site.
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