{"id":40181,"date":"2021-05-12T08:34:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T06:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/?p=40181"},"modified":"2021-05-12T08:36:08","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T06:36:08","slug":"cigar-rights-of-america-elects-new-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/cigar-rights-of-america-elects-new-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Cigar Rights of America Elects New Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Board of Directors of Cigar Rights of America (CRA) has elected new leaders.\u00a0 The Board elected Gary Pesh of Old Virginia Tobacco Company as Chairman of the Board and Karen Smith of Arturo Fuente as President.\u00a0 They are succeeding Robert G. Levin of Ashton who had served in both roles since 2014.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cI want to thank Rob for his dedication and extraordinary leadership over the past 7 years,\u201d said Pesh. \u201cWith an increasing number of proposals to regulate and tax premium cigars, the need to fight for the right to enjoy a fine cigar is perhaps more important now than ever before.\u201d<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>With the conclusion of his term as Chairman, Levin has also stepped down from CRA\u2019s Board.\u00a0 The Board elected his son, Sathya Levin, Executive Vice President and COO of Ashton, to fill his seat.\u00a0 The Board also elected Cory Bappert of Oliva Cigar Company as Vice President and Drew Newman of J.C. Newman Cigar Co. as Secretary.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cIt has been a privilege to represent premium cigar manufacturers, retailers, and consumers in Washington,\u201d said Levin.\u00a0 \u201cIt is now time for the next generation to continue this work, and I am very proud that my son Sathya is stepping up to join CRA\u2019s Board.\u201d<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Smith is the Vice President\u00a0of Arturo Fuente.\u00a0 She will be leading the organization and its staff while CRA\u2019s Board conducts a national search this summer for a new Executive Director.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Board of Directors of Cigar Rights of America (CRA) has elected new leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":40182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[177,53,49,2808,44],"tags":[4642,6539,4445,4870,6536,6537,6538],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigarjournal.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}