By Timothy S. Donahue
Top Takeaways:
- Leadership transition: Sarah Santos will exit STG at the end of March after leading its North American retail business since 2020.
- Retail shift under pressure: STG expanded physical Cigars International stores during Santos’ tenure, while online retail faced rising competition.
- Successor pending: STG expects to announce Santos’ replacement this week.
Sarah Santos, senior vice president of online and retail at Scandinavian Tobacco Group, will leave the company at the end of March, STG confirmed.
Santos has led STG’s North American retail business since 2020, overseeing a portfolio that includes Cigars International, Cigar.com, Cigarbid.com, Thompson Cigar, PipesandCigars.com, and Cigora. While most of STG’s retail revenue comes from online and catalog sales, the company has also expanded its brick-and-mortar footprint, growing Cigars International Super Stores to more than a dozen locations during Santos’ tenure.
In a company announcement obtained by halfwheel, Régis Broersma, STG’s chief commercial officer, highlighted Santos’ long history with the business.
“Sarah joined the organization in 2003 under the founders of Cigars International as Director of Operations, leading IT, the Contact Center, and the Distribution Center,” Broersma said. “Over her tenure, Sarah played a pivotal role in the acquisitions of Cigar.com, Pipes and Cigars, Thompson Cigar, Tobacco Pipes, and Cup O’ Joes. She also helped navigate the organization through multiple ownership transitions—from privately held, to Swedish Match, and most recently to Scandinavian Tobacco Group—as well as the shift to becoming a publicly traded company.”
Santos’ leadership of STG’s retail arm began just as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global markets. While STG has long told investors that the handmade cigar category is in a gradual structural decline, pandemic-era demand temporarily reversed that trend, boosting both online and physical retail channels.
STG is the only publicly traded handmade cigar company of scale and provides regular retail performance updates to investors. In recent quarters, the company has consistently highlighted strong performance at its physical Cigars International stores, even as results from the core online business have been more mixed.
Cigars International, the largest U.S. cigar retailer for more than a decade, has also faced mounting competitive pressure from Cigar Page, founded by former CI founder Keith Meier. That rivalry has increasingly influenced pricing and fulfillment strategies, including Cigars International’s October move to offer free shipping on all orders.
STG said a replacement for Santos is expected to be announced this week.
