The architect of the Starr African Rum brand, Jeffrey Zarnow serves as Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Starr African Rum LLC, overseeing the company’s operations and all aspects of bringing the new “ultra superior light” rum brand to market. Leveraging relationships built in the film, TV, music and marketing industries over the last seventeen years – including those with some of the trendiest bars and clubs in New York and Los Angeles – Zarnow is developing marketing initiatives and entertainment partnerships to ensure that Starr remains on the rise.
A native of Kansas, Zarnow first entered the entertainment industry at eighteen when he became Chairman and Executive Producer of the Penn Jazz and Blues Festival in Philadelphia. Focusing on ways to reach a mass market – a trait that would serve him well in later years – he rebranded the festival as a vehicle designed to introduce jazz and blues to young people. Through this approach, Zarnow increased attendance by more than twenty times in one year.
While attending the University of Pennsylvania, Zarnow was named a Benjamin Franklin Honor Scholar and John Marshall Scholar, also receiving the Lyndon B. Johnson Congressional Scholarship to work in Washington, DC for his local Congressman. After graduating Summa Cum Laude, he earned a Masters degree in Fine Arts from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema and Television in the Peter Stark Producing Program.
Zarnow began his career in the film industry as a story analyst for Warner Bros. Pictures/Kopelson Entertainment (Platoon, The Fugitive), working on several projects including the box office hits Se7en, Eraser and The Devil’s Advocate. He segued to Disney/Caravan Pictures, worked on numerous projects including Rush Hour and Grosse Point Blank, before moving to Universal Pictures/Lobell-Bergman Productions (Honeymoon In Vegas, The Freshmen) as a Creative/Production Executive. While there, Zarnow helped develop and oversee projects which later would be made like Intolerable Cruelty.
In April 1998, Zarnow founded O/Z Entertainment with partner Nick Osborne. Six months later, O/Z Entertainment signed a first-look development deal with Phoenix Pictures, an affiliate of Sony Pictures Entertainment where they developed various products for Sony and other studios including MGM & Miramax. In 2002, Zarnow created Zentertainment Marketing Group to develop unique and effective ways to marry corporate branding initiatives with entertainment properties and entertainers. Since its launch Zentertainment Marketing has been actively forging partnerships with such top advertisers as Ford, GM, Pepsi, Bud Light, Jack Daniels, Johnson & Johnson, Wrangler Jeans, Neutrogena, Dewalt Power Tools, Justin/Tony Lama Boots and Stetson/Resistol Hats. Project Americana, the first major endeavor launched by Zentertainment Marketing and its subsidiary Zarnow Films, is a celebration of Americana and the great western heritage of the U.S.
Zarnow’s independent film, Sam & Joe, played the festival circuit including Cinevegas, Denver Film Festival, Method Fest and the Silver Lake Film Festival in L.A. The film has won awards for Best Low-Budget film, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor. The Orphan King, a script Zarnow developed with writer/director Andrew Wilder was the next film he produced, starring Chris Evans, Bill Pullman, Alexis Bledel, Rob Brown and Andrew McCarthy. Zarnow Films continues to develop other motion pictures throughout Hollywood.
As part of his Project Americana, Zarnow sought to develop a remake of the 1952 classic western, The Lusty Men, with Matthew McConaughey attached to star. Looking to line up marketing partners in advance of the film itself, the producer had many discussions with one of the top marketing executives for Jack Daniels, leading Zarnow down a new business path that had little to do with his film endeavor: the idea of importing a unique spirit brand to the U.S.
“I was looking to import a vodka from Russia,” Zarnow remembers. “Then, one day my lawyer asked me to take a meeting with his friend who had discovered a premium rum from the African island of Mauritius. I had gotten sick on rum when I was younger and had no interest ever drinking it again. I didn’t even want to take the meeting, but after trying Starr and preferring it even to vodka, which was my drink, I have been drinking it ever since. I knew others like me thought that they too hated rum because they had never tried a rum as exceptional as Starr and knew we had to bring it to the U.S. Before Starr, there was no high end light rum here.”
Beyond the excellence of the product itself, Zarnow was intrigued by the uniqueness of “an African rum” and the status of Mauritius as a stable republic ever since gaining independence from Britain in 1968. He met the Mauritian Minister of Industry and International Trade at an African Business Summit in Washington, DC and discussed importing a great African rum – as serendipity would have it, the Minister had just come from a White House meeting and had specifically broached expanding exports beyond textiles. With a visit to the Mauritian distillery accompanied by company co-founder and Cameron Conger, Jeffrey Zarnow committed himself to importing the African rum.
In 2003 South African Ambassador to the U.S. Barbara Masekala (former Chief of Staff to President Nelson Mandela) told Zarnow about the African Union’s new initiative New Economic Partnerships for African Development (NEPAD) which encourages African nations to pool their respective resources to create products which can compete on the world marketplace. When Zarnow learned of this program, he decided to abandon his plans to produce the bottles in China and produce all the packaging material in South Africa even though it would cost more than five times as much to do so. Zarnow wanted Starr African Rum to follow the NEPAD paradigm and was one of the first companies to fully embrace this approach.
Zarnow decided that in an effort to help African nations such as South Africa become self-sufficient, Starr would donate a percentage of its profits to charities spurring African economic development like FINCA which gives single mothers in South Africa micro-loans to start their own business. Zarnow also plans to help the respective governments to promote tourism through travel giveaways and other promotions. Additionally, to further extend Starr’s socially conscientious philosophy, Zarnow made the decision to donate approximately 95% of its promotional cases to various charities that support Africa and local communities in the US.
