American Greetings promotes Weiss bros – News – Jeffrey Weiss to become president and chief operating officer; Zev Weiss will become CEO – Brief Article
CLEVELAND — American Greetings, which has spent the past few years restructuring its business, has handed the reins over to a new generation of the Weiss family.
Effective June 1, Zev Weiss, 36, will become chief executive officer, and his brother Jeffrey Weiss, 39, will become president and chief operating officer. Both have been named to the corporation’s board of directors, as well.
Zev Weiss, who joined AG in 1992 as a sales representative for Canton Cards, currently is executive vice president of AG Ventures and enterprise management, leading the corporation’s subsidiaries an a strategic business units, as well as the functions of finance, legal and human resources. Jeffrey Weiss, who joined AG in 1988 as a sales representative, currently is executive vice president of the North American greeting card division.
Their father, Morry, chairman and chief executive officer since 1992, will remain chairman of the board. James Spira, president and chief operating officer, will retire from the company, but will continue to serve as a member of the board of directors and as an advisor to management.
With the changing of the guard at AG, McDonald Investments analyst Jeff Stein said he doesn’t expect to see any significant changes at AG, especially because the brothers have been instrumental in helping to revitalize the business since they came aboard about a decade ago. Stein, who was not surprised by the executive moves, has met the brothers and said he “was impressed by their level of business maturity.
“The timing was right, and the team was right,” said Stein, who raised AG’s rating from “buy” to aggressive buy” following the news.
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