Oettinger Davidoff AG Replaces Marketing & Retail Heads

Oettinger Davidoff AG has announced a series of personnel moves, the first major global personnel changes under the new regime of ceo Beat Hauenstein.

Most notably, Charles Awad—the global head of marketing—will no longer be with the company. Awad, who joined Davidoff in 2011, has overseen one of the most aggressive branding transformations in the cigar industry across the company’s portfolio.

His most recent tile, head of global marketing & innovation, will be taken over by Eddie Simon, a longtime Davidoff employee who most recently was running the Swiss wholesale business, but previously served as the brand manager for AVO in the U.S.

Simon’s Swiss wholesale responsibilities will be assumed by Gerhard Anderlohr.

In addition, Carlo Motti’s position of svp of omni-channel retail has been eliminated. He is leaving the company after a little less than three years.

The company also announced a variety of other changes:

• Dr. Patrick Schädler, head of legal & compliance, will take over the human resources and corporate communication divisions, which are moved to corporate services.
• Tobias Gysin, head of global logistics & warehousing, is now the head of global operations and will oversee both supply chain and production
• Stefan Bloechinger, cfo, assumes responsibilities for ICT & business technology

These moves come less than six months after Hauenstein took over the role of ceo. In August 2017, the board announced it was replacing both its ceo and longtime chairman, a move that signaled larger changes for Davidoff ahead. The company says it also launching a new strategy, titled Way Forward, following a review of its business under “changing market conditions.”

Over the last two months, Davidoff made changes to its U.S. leadership structure by promoting Dylan Austin to vp of sales and marketing while Rich Krutick was elevated to vp of marketing and retail.

Davidoff is one of the largest cigar companies in the world with its eponymous brand as well as AVO, Camacho, Zino and others. The company also operates retail stores around the world and has a variety of non-cigar businesses.

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.