Steve Abbot Email & Phone Number

Richmond, Virginia, Us

Responsibility for the strategic direction and growth of the company’s portfolio of premium cigar brands, such as Macanudo, Cohiba, Partagas, CAO, and Punch.• Lead a team of six marketing direct reports that drives and delivers strategic thinking, creative solutions, and executional excellence across a $100 million sales portfolio of 20+ brands.• Shepard the strategic marketing planning process to drive cross-functional consensus; includes establishing Sales and Trade Marketing buy-in, volume forecast development and alignment, and senior management approval.• Selected to lead cross-divisional initiative to improve the company’s marketing strategy process.

Richmond, Virginia, Us

P&L responsibility for a portfolio of premium cigar brands, including the company’s flagship brand Macanudo. Developed and executed the strategic marketing plans by leading cross-functional teams and agency partners, managing innovation, and coaching direct reports. • Drove Macanudo to deliver double-digit growth through innovation and core support.• Repositioned Cohiba and built a growth platform for the brand that doubled sales in five years.

Developed initiative to bring temporary retailers (pop-up stores) to vacant storefronts in Richmond. Worked closely with landlords, city planners/agents, and community organizations to create business model, sell the proposition, and secure a contract with city/state agencies.

Stockholm, Se

Leadership responsibility for key strategic brands within the Swedish Match brand portfolio. Responsibilities include strategic planning, brand stewardship, consumer promotions/activation, consumer insights, and team leadership.• Launched the leading brand of Swedish smokeless tobacco (General Snus) into the US, implementing a phased market-level roll-out that targeted key influencers and early adopters.• Established a consumer research panel with over 5,000 participants. Panel increased consumer input into marketing activities and delivered faster research results.• Spearheaded a brand repositioning of Red Man Moist Snuff that significantly improved consumers’ perception of brand quality. Initiative included packaging innovation (FlavorSeal™), product reformulation, and revised messaging.• Championed a shift in brand strategy on Timber Wolf from trial-driving to loyalty-building.

Orrville, Oh, Us

Responsible for the Nature's Recipe brand of pet products and then later the Meaty Bone brand of dog snacks. Roles required repositioning initiatives to drive relevant consumer benefits. Each initiative involved packaging, product and communication overhauls.

Orrville, Oh, Us

Responsible for of all pet snacks innovation for Del Monte’s flagship brands (Pup-Peroni, Snausages, Meaty Bone, Scooby Snacks and Pounce) from concept ideation to product launch.Launched multiple new product initiatives in the pet snacks category, driving incremental sales and requiring multi-million dollar investment. Established a robust pipeline for innovation spawning from an in-depth, multi-faceted consumer immersion process; including market opportunity/trend identification and concept development/qualification.Led the creation of a competitive intelligence gathering/monitoring process at Del Monte Foods that has improved cross-functional information exchange and driven better forecasting/tactical planning.

Chicago, Il, Us

Brand management responsibility for Gravy Train, Skippy, and Reward dog food brands. Developed/executed customer-specific promotions to drive off-shelf merchandising at key retail price points.

Bowling Green, Ky, Us

Management and P&L responsibility for the Fruit of the Loom Ladies & Girls Underwear brand, providing apparel to mass merchants including Wal*Mart, Kmart, and Target. Spearheaded the launch of Girls Fashion Underwear Program, delivering incremental dollars to the bottom line.

Business, Accounting

Mba, Marketing