Having last night uploaded a video interview into my Pinnacle editing software, I’ve been busy reviewing different clips today, and I’m repeatedly struck by how affable my interviewee was.

Molson Coors CFO Stewart Glendinning had only minutes earlier finished delivering a keynote presentation at the Hackett Group Best Practices Conference when he agreed to field my questions in front of the camera.

We’ll plan to post our video interview with Molson Coors’ CFO early next week, and we’ll also likely post a short question-and-answer text article – where I ask him to reflect upon his good fortune to be a CFO inside an industry characterized by many as recession-proof. There’s little doubt that Mr. Glendinning has had some practice answering that one. Molson Coors is one of the biggest brewers in the world and makes several popular brands, including Molson Canadian, Coors Light, and Blue Moon.

And while the fact is that beer usually holds up better than other packaged goods categories during tough economic times, this recession was different. Beer shipments trended downward.

“We’re not like the car manufacturers, who saw their sales drop 20 percent or more due to the economy, but when people don’t have money in their pocket, they can’t buy the product,” said Glendinning.

For Molson Coors, the consumers most vulnerable to the recession’s wrath were “20-somethings” whose unemployment rate has reportedly been twice that of the general population.

“We’re not recession-proof — we’re recession-resistant. And while the U.S. beer business has had slight growth for a long time and has grown only in the 1 to 2 percent range, we’re seeing a volume deflection of 3 to 4 percent for the last couple of quarters,” said Glendinning, whose keynote titled “Outsourcing in 365 Days or Less” was notable for its candor – a quality we hope to capture in our upcoming video interview. ###