Conder Retiring From Crowned Heads
After a 45-year career in the cigar industry, veteran Mike Conder has stepped away from the business and is retiring. His last position was chief executive officer of Crowned Heads, a Nashville company he co-founded with Jon Huber in 2011. Conder, 65, will consult for the company going forward.
Tim Ozgener, founder of OZ Family Cigars, has stepped into the role as CEO of the company, and has purchased the shares in Crowned Heads previously owned by Conder. “I have always been impressed with what Mike and Jon have created with Crowned Heads,” says Ozgener, “and today I’m looking towards bringing my 30-plus years of experience in the premium cigar business to continue to grow the company and work with this amazing team we have put together.”
Huber is now president of the company. Adam Shepard was named chief operating officer, and Miguel Schoedel was promoted to vice president of sales.
Ozgener, Huber and Conder all worked together at CAO when it was headquartered in Nashville, and before it was acquired by Henri Wintermans in 2007. It later became a part of Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG). Ozgener’s father, Cano, founded CAO.
Conder’s long career in cigars began with a job he took while in college, working at Oxmoor Smoke Shoppe in Louisville, Kentucky. He had a knack for the job, known for rearranging items after the owner would leave for the evening. An introduction led to him being hired as a sales rep for General Cigar Co., the makers of Macanudo and Partagás, first in Cincinnati and then moving to the company’s New York City headquarters, where he worked for the Cullman family, who owned the company at the time. He was promoted eventually to vice president of sales. “I loved the job, I loved everything about General,” says Conder. The only thing he wasn’t fond of what the long commute to Manhattan from his home in New Jersey. “I longed to get back to the south,” he says. “I left basically for that.”
Conder moved back to Louisville and was told he should speak to Cano Ozgener, who owned Nashville’s CAO Cigars. He drove down and had lunch with Cano and his son Tim. That led to a job at CAO, which led to the founding of Crowned Heads after its sale.
“I’ve had the honor to work with many wonderful people the last 45 years,” says Conder, “but the opportunity to build Crowned Heads alongside this team has certainly been the most rewarding chapter.”
In addition to the management changes, Crowned Heads is also in the process of a rebranding, pushing to emphasize the company name on its cigars, which includes Mil Días, Las Calaveras, Four Kicks and Coroneta. Ozgener said the plan is to “make the Crowned Heads logo the hero of the cigars,” he says. “From this time going forward, all the core brands are going to have a centralized identity.”
Crowned Heads cigars are sold in 1,300 stores in the United States, as well as 13 countries internationally.
