Celebrate Express Inc. has a temporary chief executive officer. The company, which markets children's party products through catalogs and web sites BirthdayExpress.com, Storybook.com and CostumeExpress.com, has named vice president of finance Darin White as interim CEO to replace outgoing CEO and chairman Mike Jewell.
Jewell will remain with Celebrate Express as a consultant through a transition to a new permanent chief executive officer. Jewell will initially serve in such a role on a full-time basis and will remain on the board of directors, Celebrate Express says. "We appreciate Mike Jewell's many contributions to the company and wish him well in his future endeavors. We are fortunate to have an executive of Darin White's caliber who can assume the role of acting CEO and continue to execute on the company's strategy while we search for a permanent replacement,” says independent director Jean Reynolds. “Our search for a new CEO will focus on candidates with proven track records of executing programs that drive growth, strengthen brands and reduce costs across growing enterprises."
Celebrate Express recently revised its financial guidance for the 2006 fiscal year. Net sales are now expected to be between $86 million and $88 million, Celebrate Express says.
“As a result of delays in the automation of the distribution center, the company now expects to incur higher costs than originally anticipated in the fulfillment area through the remainder of the fiscal year,” says Celebrate Express. “The company expects that more revenue than originally anticipated will move into the fourth fiscal quarter due to order backlogs.”
In fiscal 2005, Celebrate Express had web sales of $41.4 million, an increase of 33.1% from web sales of $31.1 million in 2004. In fiscal 2005, the web accounted for 60% of total sales of $69.1 million.
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