Mr. Hessler was appointed as the Company's Chief Operating Officer in May 2024. He began his career in 1989 at the port of Long Beach, CA as Account Executive at Sea-Land Service Inc., a container shipping company. Following a transfer to Moscow, Russia in 1992, he led sales activities for Sea-Land’s fast-growing business in Russia and the former Soviet Union, at a time when many multinational corporations were establishing their Russian entities. In 1995, Mr. Hessler joined Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM), a multinational tobacco company, as Logistics Analyst in Lausanne, Switzerland, managing their cigarette export business to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. He joined RJ Reynolds International (“RJRI”), a multinational tobacco company, in 1997, based in Moscow as Import Manager. In 1999 Japan Tobacco International (“JTI”) acquired the non-US operations of RJRI and Mr. Hessler was subsequently assigned to Hong Kong to lead JTI’s global supply chain function for Asia Pacific. In 2004 Mr. Hessler was transferred to JTI’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland as Global Customer Service Director, where he ran the export activities for domestic and duty-free markets worldwide. In 2007, Mr. Hessler was assigned Manufacturing Services Director at JTI Petro, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, managing a factory with total annual output of 87 billion cigarettes and a retail value of $5 billion. In 2009 he was transferred to South Korea as JTI’s Contract Manufacturing Director and worked in Korea for five years.