Tom Cardella offered a simple assessment of his leadership role at MillerCoors LLC, the beer-brewing joint venture formed by two of the country’s top malt beverage producers.

“I sell beer,” Cardella said.

Cardella is eastern division president for MillerCoors, the entity launched in July 2008 by Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Co. and Coors Brewing Co. of Golden, Colorado. Formally, Cardella, a 31-year veteran of the brewing industry, is responsible for sales, profit, and market share growth for all of MillerCoors’ operations east of the Mississippi River. He is one of two division presidents at Chicago-based MillerCoors.

Although revenue and profit are key concerns for Cardella, he speaks passionately about the less-tangible aspects about working at MillerCoors and in the beer industry, in general.

“The fun thing about it is that people love to talk about beer,” Cardella said in an interview at his fifth-floor corner office overlooking West Highland Boulevard at MillerCoors’ regional headquarters in Milwaukee.

He said the complexity of the industry always has intrigued him.

“What’s really interesting about this business is it’s a national business, especially for MillerCoors,” Cardella said. “We’ve got national scale, and we do a lot of business with the bigger national chains like Wal-Mart and Kroger, but at the same time the business is really local. If you look at consumer preferences in Chicago, and then you drive three-and-a-half hours to Indianapolis, it’s totally different.”

Prior to taking on his current role, Cardella, 55, served as executive vice president of sales and distribution for Miller Brewing Co., a position he held from 2006 to 2008. In recent years, he also served as senior vice president of international brands and market development for Miller.

From 1997 to 2005, he worked at InBev, the Belgium-based beer brewer that in 2008 acquired MillerCoors’ chief rival, St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos.

“Tom’s strengths emanate from who he is as a leader,” said Tom Long, MillerCoors’ president and chief commercial officer. “He is authentic and passionate about our business and knows how important responsibility, enjoyment, and fun is to our company, and he lives it every day.”

Cardella sees near-term opportunities for growth for MillerCoors.

“We’re a year and a half into the joint venture, and we’re doing quite well,” Cardella said. “We have five straight quarters of earnings growth, and we’re doing this at a time when the entire world is going through an economic downturn. We’re looking to continue to build the equity in our core brands and be in even a better position as the economy strengthens.”

He noted that about 30 percent of the revenue in the beer industry is generated by the sale of mainstream light beers.

“With Miller Lite and Coors Light, we are extremely well positioned,” he said.