Drew Estate Announces New SVP of Marketing & CIO

Drew Estate is proud to announce both the promotion of Founder and President Jonathan Drew Sann to Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) of Drew Estate, as well as the hiring of Andrew Duncan, who will succeed Jonathan in the lead Marketing role and serve as Senior Vice President of Marketing. As Jonathan moves into the CIO role, he will remain the company’s President and a key member of the Executive Team.

Jonathan Drew’s new position as Chief Innovation Officer will allow him to take on a role crafted specifically to unleash, focus, and leverage the unique entrepreneurial, visionary, and disruptive capabilities that have been fueled by his personal journey over the arc of his career, and most particularly over the last 13 years since he sold Drew Estate to Swisher in 2014. ​

The mission of Drew Estate’s newly formed Innovation Department is to identify new opportunities that strongly align with Drew Estate’s four competencies – innovation, disruption, iconic brands, and engagement – thus enabling the company to broaden its business portfolio with the goal of creating significant levels of virtuous value for years to come. The newly announced Drew Dominicana factory in the Dominican Republic as well as the newly announced J.SANN & SON retail division exemplify mission-critical strategic initiatives birthed by the Innovation Department.

Drew Estate CEO Glenn Wolfson explains, “We are asking Jonathan to engage his visionary roots and create multidimensional cultural and business adjacencies that will help shape the future of Drew Estate. This is a momentous occasion in Drew Estate’s history, and one we’ll surely look back at as the beginning of a whole new chapter.”

Jonathan Drew remarks from Wynwood, Florida, “When I think about my work-life today, I’m focusing on the long-term legacy of Drew Estate – all of the stakeholders in the USA, Nica, and now the Dominican Republic – the people who give their heart and soul to make us better. I focus on the consumers and retailers of our beautiful craft, who deserve to be treated well and appreciated. Finally, I’m thinking about my son, JD2 and teaching him how to make an honest living with a life of purpose – the Drew Estate Way.”

Drew Estate is also proud to announce the hiring of Andrew Duncan as the company’s new SVP of Marketing. Andrew will inherit the overall leadership responsibilities for Brand Management, Consumer Engagement, Digital Marketing, and Global Creative. In addition to his role leading Marketing at Drew Estate, Andrew will work closely and collaboratively with JD to support the commercialization of the Innovation Department’s strategic initiatives. ​

Andrew Duncan comes to Drew Estate from The Sazerac Company, one of America’s most respected family-owned spirits companies. In his most recent role as Global Head of Brand Marketing, Andrew led global growth strategy for the company’s Bourbon and American Whiskey portfolio. During his tenure at Sazerac, Andrew helped steward some of the most iconic and fastest-growing brands in American Whiskey through a period of significant growth and premiumization. Prior to Sazerac, Andrew held a variety of senior marketing positions at Procter & Gamble with responsibilities spanning brand strategy, portfolio management, commercial planning, partnerships, and consumer engagement.

“As anyone internally at Drew Estate can tell you, filling this position has been a very challenging search,” said Drew Estate CEO Glenn Wolfson. “We set the bar extremely high with exacting requirements, searching for proven leadership and management skills, talents and values that align with Drew Estate’s ethos, hands-on experience with ‘premiumization’. Most importantly, Andrew is a very strong fit, not only with Drew Estate’s iconic culture, but with the premium cigar industry’s culture at large. He is authentic, passionate, and purpose-driven, and already embraces many of the attributes which characterize the Fellowship of the Leaf. ​ We are confident we’ve found the right leader for the job with Andrew and are excited to see what he can achieve here at Drew Estate as well as what we can contribute to the ongoing health and growth of our premium cigar industry.”

“The last 30 years in the cigar industry has taught me that Drew Estate is a very strange company. After a very extensive search, I can say that finding Andrew was like finding a needle in a haystack. Andrew is a superstar because he’s intellectual, numeric, analytical – yet also humble and very human. He’s from the Midwest of the United States, with a military background, and I deeply appreciate his personal values and virtues of which I’ve learned in our fast-friendship. We are gonna be solid partners across Marketing and Innovation,” remarks Founder Jonathan Drew Sann.

On the personal front, Andrew is a native of Pittsburgh and a true son of the heartland who shares the values of consumers on Main Streets across America. He received his MBA from the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University and his MM from Carnegie Mellon. Andrew currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with his family.