For those of you that don’t know…
In November of 2010, C.A.O. Director of Lifestyle Marketing Jon Huber decided to leave the company after Scandinavian Tobacco (which had acquired C.A.O. in January 2007) moved C.A.O.’s operations from Nashville to Richmond, Virginia, where General Cigar Co., based.
Soon after that, it was announced that Huber (along with 3 other former C.A.O. employees: Mike Conder, formerly C.A.O.’s senior VP of marketing; Michael Trebing, who served as C.A.O.’s creative media manager, and Nancy Heathman, who was C.A.O.’s graphic designer) were starting up a new brand, based in Nashville, Tennessee (which happens to be where C.A.O. was located until the move).
Named “Crowned Heads, LLC”, the new brand would be releasing just one line by the end of 2011. Dubbed “Four Kicks”. the name of the line was based on a Kings of Leon song of the same name.
Says Jon Huber:
It was towards the end of 2010, and my colleagues and I were in the midst of a tumultuous period of uncertainty, transition and change. The company that we held dear to our hearts, CAO International, Inc., was caught in the middle of a corporate merger between Swedish Match and ST Group (CAOʼs parent company at the time). The very foundation that CAO had been built upon–people, relationships, integrity, and loyalty–were being stripped away. The end result would be that many people whom we considered as ʻfamilyʼ would soon be unemployed and CAO would find itself being taken away from its hometown of Nashville, TN, and relocated to Richmond, VA.
Leave a Reply