Gibson Guitar Announces Senior Level Executive Appointments
Chief Operations Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, General Counsel Named
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE…Nashville, Tennessee…August 30, 2005…Musical giant Gibson Guitar announced several key executive appointments this week including the positions of Chief Operating Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary. Joining the company as Chief Operating Officer is William P. Antonace and as Chief Marketing Officer is Steve Horn. Roxanne Khazarian has been named Senior Vice President , General Counsel & Secretary.
William Antonace will join Gibson Guitar as Chief Operating Officer in October 2005.
He brings years of experience as a senior level general manager and operations executive with a proven track record in corporate leadership. His role at Gibson Guitar will focus on all operations management for the entire family of brands and multi-site manufacturing management.
Antonace joins Gibson from Symrise Inc in Teterboro, New Jersey where he served most recently at Executive Vice President and COO, North America. At Symrise he was responsible for maintaining the market share for the privately held company in flavors, fragrances, cosmetic ingredients and aroma chemicals. All strategic operating plans across North America and responsibility for $400 million in sales fell under his leadership.
Prior to his Symrise appointment, William Antonace served as Vice President Logistics/Supply Chain for the Pactiv Corporation in Lake Forest, Illinois. At Pactiv Antonace was responsible for 23 North American and European locations including all supply chain activities including production planning, inventory control, distribution, transportation, customer service and operational strategic planning. Antonace also served in various positions at The Sherwin Williams Company in Cleveland, Ohio. As Group Vice President, Operations and Supply Chain of the #1 U.S retailer of paint, he was responsible for all operations and supply chain activities of a $2.2 billion group. He managed over 3,900 employees in 25 locations throughout North America and was accountable for group-wide manufacturing, logistics, engineering, quality systems and e-procurement. Earlier in his career he was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of The Cleveland Tool & Supply Company in Cleveland, Ohio and Accounting Manager at Leaseway Transportation in Tarrytown, New York and Lordstown, Ohio.
William Antonace will be based at the Gibson Guitar corporate headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a member of APICS (American Production and Inventory Control Society), WERC (Warehousing Education and Research Council), Council of Logistics Management and a trustee of David N. Myers College where he earned a BA in accounting. He later received his MBA from Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio.
Photo of William Antonace attached.
Gibson Guitar has also named Steve Horn to the position of Chief Marketing Officer. Horn will be responsible for the management of key marketing functions within the organization including Creative Services, Marketing Administration, Events and Trade Shows, Product Management and the Gibson Web team.
Steve Horn comes to Gibson Guitar with over 20 years of marketing experience. Most recently he served as Chief Marketing Officer for Coca-Cola Enterprises based in Atlanta for both domestic and international areas. Prior to his appointment at Coca-Cola he served as Assistant Vice President, Brand Management for Coca-Cola’s total portfolio of U.S. soft drinks with a total revenue of over $10 billion. One of the many accomplishments during his tenure at Coca-Cola includes the award-winning “Obey Your Thirst” campaign which was launched under his direction and which resulted in Sprite becoming the fastest growing soft drink in the world.
Prior to Coca-Cola Horn spent time at competing Pepsi Cola Company as Vice President of Portfolio Brands responsible for Brand Management of Mountain Dew, Aquafina, the Pepsi Starbucks joint venture and all other non-cola brands in the U.S. It was during this time that Pepsi launched the very successful Sierra Mist brand, won the “Best Super Bowl Ad” award from USA Today and led Pepsi to new initiatives in Urban Marketing. In the earlier part of his career he oversaw the development of the global emerging marketing strategy for Citibank.
“It is very exciting to have this new leadership team in place for our dynamic company,” said Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar. “William Antonace, Steve Horn and Roxanne Khazarian all represent a team with an enormous amount of energy and experience combined with leadership qualities unmatched anywhere in the musical instrument manufacturing sector. Each will play an important role in maintaining Gibson Guitar’s global dominance.”
Steve Horn was born in Chicago and will be based at Gibson Guitar’s corporate headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. He attended the University of Illinois earning a B.S. degree in Biology and also attended Indiana University where he received his MBA in Marketing. Photo of Steve Horn attached.
Roxanne Khazarian has been named to the position of Sr. Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary. As the consulting attorney for the Corporate & Securities Group in the Legal Department at General Electric World Headquarters in Fairfield, CT, she worked on special projects. She served as Vice President, General Counsel at Kaplan, Inc. a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company. There Khazarian was responsible for managing legal functions and staff. She successfully resolved multi-million state dollar wage and hour litigation and developed staffing for, and implemented restructuring to decentralize, the delivery of legal services to individual business units.
Prior to joining Kaplan, Inc Roxanne Khazarian was a consulting attorney for Jones Apparel Group, Inc in White Plains, New York. Here she handled all functions for the Vice President, Deputy General Counsel including corporate SEC, NYSE projects and staff management for the $4.5 billion wholesale and retail apparel and accessories company. Roxanne Khazarian was Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of the international furniture manufacturer, Ethan Allen, Inc. She has also spent time at Textron Lycoming in Stratford, CT and Cadbury Schweppes Beverages, both in legal counsel positions.
Khazarian is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She will work out of dual offices at the Gibson Guitar New York showroom located on West 54th Street and also at corporate headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. No photo available.
About Gibson Guitar
Gibson is known worldwide for producing classic models in every major style of fretted instrument, including acoustic and electric guitars, mandolins and banjos. Gibson’s digital guitar represents the biggest advance in electric guitar design in over 70 years. Founded in 1894 in Kalamazoo, MI, and headquartered in Nashville since 1984, Gibson Guitar Corp.’s family of brands now includes Epiphone, Dobro, Valley Arts, Kramer, Steinberger, Tobias, Slingerland, Valley Arts, Maestro, Baldwin, Hamilton and Wurlitzer. Visit Gibson’s website at www.gibson.com or www.gibson.com/press
CONTACT:
Caroline Galloway GIBSON 440-338-3469 caroline.galloway@gibson.com
Jason Padgitt Rogers & Cowan 310-854-8140 jpadgitt@rogersandcowan.com
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