Eugene Kashper

Kashper was born in the Soviet Union to Jewish parents;[4] he has told Russian interviewers he was born in Leningrad in 1969.[5][6] He and his family immigrated to the United States as political refugees when he was six years old, and he became an American citizen shortly after.[7] He grew up in Arizona and New Jersey, and after high school attended Columbia University, graduating in 1992[8] with a degree in East Asian Studies.

He then went to work for Ernst & Young, which quickly capitalized on his language skills by sending him to Moscow. Soon after that move, he left Ernst & Young and moved into the beer industry.[9]

He began his beer industry career in 1994 by importing Stroh beer from The Stroh Brewery Company of Detroit, Michigan into Russia.[10] After the Russian government started imposing taxes on imported beer, he founded the Pivovarni Ivana Taranova (PIT) brewery with plants in Khabarovsk, Novotroitsk, and Kaliningrad.[11] In just a few years the company had become the biggest independent producer of beer before its founders sold it to Heineken in 2005 – only to start all over again just outside the Russian capital with an even bigger, even more modern enterprise in 2006 - Moscow Brewing Company.[12]

He later co-founded Oasis Beverages and served as its chairman from 2008 to 2014.[13] In press releases from September 2014, Oasis Beverages was mentioned as the buyer for the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand.[14] The headquarters for Oasis was an address on Cyprus - a known tax-haven used by Russian oligarchs.[15]

Under Kashper, Pabst announced on November 13, 2014, that it had completed its sale to Blue Ribbon Intermediate Holdings, LLC. Blue Ribbon is a partnership between Kashper and TSG Consumer Partners, a San Francisco–based private equity firm.[16] "We are thrilled to complete the acquisition of this great company," said Kashper, who said he would relocate with his family[17] from New York to Los Angeles.[18]