Christine Hewitt Lanza, the director of legislative affairs for the Cigar Association of America (CAA) will be leaving her role to take a related position at Swisher International.

Hewitt Lanza joined CAA, one of the three largest cigar industry trade groups, in January 2013. She will now become the director of government affairs at Swisher International, the world’s largest cigarmaker and the parent company of Drew Estate. Per an email sent to colleagues, Hewitt Lanza implied that Swisher’s new Washington D.C.-based office will be open in 2019.

The Cigar Association of America represents a mixture of cigar interests including both premium cigars and mass market cigars. In the last decade, many premium cigar manufacturers have chosen to contribute more to other organizations or direct causes, citing conflicts with the larger mass market companies at CAA.

Tomorrow will be Hewitt Lanza’s last day at CAA.

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Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.