General Cigar Co. Cuts Marketing Staff

Some of the most tenured members of General Cigar Co.’s marketing staff will be departing.

The company has confirmed that Gus Martinez, Victoria McKee Jaworski, Ed McKenna and Jack Toraño are all leaving the company at the end of this year.

Victoria McKee Jaworski is the longest-tenured employee of the group. She joined the company in September 2002 and has most recently served as director of public relations and experiential marketing. Her tenure included a laundry list of changes for General, most notably Swedish Match’s cigar and pipe divisions, which included General, and Scandinavian Tobacco Group A/S—which included CAO—and then the transition to a public company.

Ed McKenna joined the company in 2009 and worked as the brand manager for CAO, Hoyo de Monterrey and Punch during his tenure. He was promoted to director of marketing in late 2016.

Gus Martinez, the director of brand marketing, joined General in November 2012. Jack Toraño joined the company in mid-2016 as a brand ambassador for Toraño, which General acquired in 2014.

Those affected who halfwheel was able to contact declined to comment.

Earlier this year, Scandinavian Tobacco Group—the parent of General, Cigars International and others—announced that it would cut more than 100 white collar positions around the world as part of a cost-cutting maneuver.

It’s still unknown what the total number of layoffs at General is. Régis Broersma, president of General Cigar Co., declined to comment on the total number of layoffs.

All brand managers will now report directly to Chris Tarr, vp of marketing.

Patrick Lagreid contributed to this story.

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.