Company: IPST
Filing Date: 2025-05-30
Form Type: PRE 14A
Source: 0001788230-25-000100
Chunk: 27

Company: Heritage Distilling Holding Company, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-30
Form: PRE 14A
Chunk 27
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 to the Board, each to hold office until the annual meeting of stockholders in 2028.

We know of no reason why any nominee would be unable to serve as a director. If any nominee becomes unable to serve, your proxy may vote for another nominee proposed by the Board or the Board may reduce the number of directors to be elected. If any director resigns, dies or is otherwise unable to serve out his or her term, or the Board increases the number of directors, then the Board may fill the vacancy.

Director Nominee Biographies

The following is a brief biographical summary of the experience of our director nominees:

| Christopher H. "Toby" Smith 
 AGE:86                      
 DIRECTOR SINCE:2022         |     | Christopher H. “Toby” Smith has been a director of our Company since 2022. Mr. Smith is actively engaged in the practice of law in representing both domestic and international corporate clients. At the outset of his career he was a partner of the New York firm of Whitman & Ransom (now Winston & Strawn LLP.) and later served as Of Counsel to the firm of Foley & Lardner. Mr. Smith is licensed to practice law in New York, Connecticut and Washington, D.C. Mr. Smith founded and, since February 1986 has been, an attorney at Alexander, Smith & Company, Inc., a Connecticut-based legal and financial advisory firm. Mr. Smith has served numerous public and private enterprises, nationally and internationally, as Executive Chairman of the Board, Lead Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and General Counsel. Representative experience includes Puma USA, Sylvania International, Escada, London Fog, Medical Staffing Network, Barnes Engineering, Atkins Nutritionals, Thompson Media, and Oneida, Ltd. Mr. Smith also served as Chief Executive Officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which is better known as the Bronx Zoo. Mr. Smith is a graduate of Williams College and the Yale Law School. His post-graduate work included clerkships on the United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. and the Supreme Court of Connecticut. He also served as a Fellow of the Organization of American States and studied comparative law in Venezuela. |

| 2025 Proxy Statement |     | 16 |     | HERITAGE DISTILLING HOLDING COMPANY, INC. |

Proposal One

| Jeffrey P. Wensel, M.D., Ph. D. 
 AGE:63                          
 DIRECTOR SINCE:2017             |