FreshBox® by CigarBros®: Remon Mansour on Leadership, Innovation, and Building What Lasts

As the founder and president of CigarBros®, Remon Mansour’s journey is rooted in family, discipline, and a shared commitment to doing the work the right way. Built alongside his brothers, the brand was shaped by trust, accountability, and a leadership philosophy grounded in example rather than instruction. From the beginning, the goal was to create something authentic, intentional, and built to last.

That same mindset fuels FreshBox®, CigarBros®’s latest innovation and a modern answer to one of cigar culture’s most overlooked challenges: preservation. Mansour approaches innovation with restraint– and uses technology to protect tradition. Having navigated both grassroots entrepreneurship and high-level corporate partnerships, including Procter & Gamble, he understands how to scale without dilution and evolve without losing identity. In this Men’s Success Hub conversation, Mansour breaks down the principles behind his leadership, the systems that support long-term success, and his vision for preserving a culture while opening the door for the next generation to step confidently inside.

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CigarBros® was built alongside your brothers and rooted in a shared vision. How did building together shape your perspective on leadership, trust, and scaling a brand the right way?

Remon Mansour: Building CigarBros® alongside my brothers has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I’m the youngest of the four brothers, and I’ve learned more from them than I could ever put into words—mostly by watching the standards they set every day. Their work ethic, their discipline, and the way they showed up consistently shaped how I view leadership, trust, and what it really takes to build something that lasts.

From the beginning, we set a clear tone for having a shared vision of where we wanted to go and then doing whatever it took to get there. It was never “delegate and direct” but “roll up your sleeves and do it.” That approach taught me a simple but powerful lesson on leadership. You earn respect by being willing to do the work yourself. When your team knows you’ll step into any role, carry the heaviest load, and outwork the room when needed, it creates a bond and builds morale. People don’t just follow a title—they follow effort, consistency, and example.

Trust, for me, comes down to dependability. Showing up as much for the small things as the big things. With my brothers, it’s never just about outcomes, but rather about effort and accountability. That environment creates real confidence, because you’re not operating out of fear of failure but out of encouragement, discipline, and the belief that if you keep showing up and keep improving, results will follow.

Scaling a brand the right way doesn’t happen overnight by making grand gestures. There are no shortcuts. You have to be authentic about your product, transparent with your customers, and honest with yourself. You’re not perfect—and neither is your business—but the foundation has to be strong: a unified team, a clear vision, and the willingness to work through the hard parts without sacrificing your standards. You can evolve your packaging, sharpen your messaging, improve distribution, and even expand your audience—but you can’t adapt your identity away. 

If your brand stands for preservation, ritual, and quality, then every partnership has to respect that. Otherwise, you’re not scaling—you’re getting diluted. These are the principles my brothers instilled in me for which I am sincerely grateful. And I carry them into everything we’re building with CigarBros® and FreshBox®.

You’ve moved between grassroots entrepreneurship and major corporate partnerships, including Procter & Gamble. What did that contrast teach you about credibility, adaptability, and protecting your brand identity?

Remon: There are distinct differences between grassroots entrepreneurship and major corporate partnerships. And moving between them taught me that doing something truly special requires being genuinely different. You have to bring something truly new to the table, not just a slightly improved version of what already exists. But when you’re dealing with big companies, being different can feel “risky” to them. Change challenges systems, habits, and comfort zones—so earning credibility can be more difficult. The upside is that once you do, you know you’ve built something real: not just a product, but a repeatable, trustworthy brand.

Grassroots entrepreneurship teaches you survival. It forces you to move fast, solve problems with limited resources, and stay creative under pressure. Corporate partnerships teach you standards—structure, compliance, consistency, and long-term thinking. So there are clearly lessons to be learned from operating in those seemingly different worlds. And the seeming contrasts also taught me how to be adaptable without becoming carelessly flexible and gave me the experience and tools that I apply in everything we do with CigarBros® and FreshBox®.  Credibility can’t be built on mere confidence. It’s built when your product and your process consistently match your promise. 

Cigar culture is deeply tied to tradition and craftsmanship. How do you innovate within a legacy-driven industry without losing its soul?

Remon: The premium cigar industry has lasted—and grown—for so long because its foundation is tradition, craftsmanship, and ritual. When someone experiences a great cigar for the first time, and it’s done right, it doesn’t feel like a one-time purchase. It becomes a relationship. A journey that’s enjoyable, personal, and rewarding. That’s why innovation in this space has to be handled differently. In some industries, disruption for the sake of disruption is celebrated. In premium cigars, if you disrupt carelessly, you don’t create innovation—you create noise. You risk stripping away the very thing that makes cigar culture special.

Our principle has stayed consistent: use technology to preserve, not replace. Innovation should create new pathways while protecting the culture’s legacy and the maker’s intent. We make the experience more reliable, not more complicated. We’re not trying to modernize cigars into something else. We’re trying to remove the friction that keeps people from fully enjoying them, making it easier for anyone—from a first-timer to a seasoned aficionado—to experience cigars the way they were meant to be experienced: fresh, respected, and enjoyed with confidence.

FreshBox® introduces a new standard for cigar preservation and design. What gap in the market made you say, “This needs to be built differently”?

Remon: Contrary to what some may think, the gap wasn’t that people didn’t want premium cigars; it was that most people couldn’t consistently keep cigars in premium condition. And this was a recurring issue faced by retailers and newer customers. Freshness is the beginning of everything. If preservation fails, the cigar fails before the ritual even starts.

What we saw was an industry where many operate from the assumption that customers should already know the “rules” of how to store, humidify, season, monitor, and maintain. But that’s a misguided way of thinking. The market didn’t need another humidor. It needed a preservation system—something that removes doubt, reduces steps, and protects the cigar the way its maker intended, even for someone experiencing cigar culture for the first time.

That same mindset shaped how we created what became the world’s first truly shippable humidor experience, partnering with retailers and giving them a way to participate in premium cigars with minimal friction—while giving customers the ability to buy fresh cigars with confidence, even if they don’t own a humidor at home. FreshBox® was about bringing that solution all the way home: breaking down the barriers to freshness, making the lounge-level experience more accessible, and making cigars easier to share, gift, and enjoy. That is why it had to be built differently.

From patent-pending airflow engineering to sleek modular aesthetics, why is it no longer enough for products to simply function—why must they also tell a story?

Remon: That’s a great question, because at the heart of it, we’ve become better-informed consumers. We don’t want to consume products anymore just for the sake of it. We want to feel something. We all want an experience we can trust, an identity we can relate to, and a ritual we can enjoy repeating. Function is simply the baseline now. A product that only “works” is forgettable. But a product that communicates purpose becomes part of someone’s experience, and eventually, part of their life. With FreshBox®, the patent-pending airflow engineering and the modular design aren’t just features; they’re proof. They tell the story that this was built with intention: built to protect the cigar, protect the ritual, and remove the doubt.

Aesthetics matter for the same reason. If the goal is to bring the cigar lounge experience home, it has to look and feel elevated every time you open it, choose from it, and share from it. That’s why we were intentional about design and packaging—so that even in the comfort and convenience of being at home, the customer can still savor that unique sense of tradition and selection, including the brand heritage that makes cigars special. When you combine that storytelling with ease of use, you don’t just end up with a functional product—you end up with something customers genuinely enjoy coming back to. And that’s the difference: they’re not just making a casual purchase, they’re stepping into an experience.

You’re known for elevating packaging, retail experience, and usability. In your view, what do most brands misunderstand about how consumers actually engage with products?

Remon: Most brands misunderstand how people actually engage with products - often assuming that customers engage the way the brand does—by reading, researching, comparing specs, and analyzing features. Most customers don’t. They engage through moments. It’s receiving it as a gift. It’s the unboxing. The first use. Feeling a rush of pride in owning it. When it saves them from messing something up. Those are the moments that shape whether a product becomes a one-time purchase or something people come back to—and talk about.

A lot of brands launch new products and lead with all the bells and whistles that make them “unique.” They add steps, instructions, and complexity. They tend to overbuild features and underbuild reassurance. They end up missing what consumers value most: their own time and their quality of life. And then they wonder why people don’t turn into repeat customers. Consumers aren’t looking for a lecture. They want something they can believe in.

Entrepreneurship at your level comes with constant pressure and responsibility. What habits or principles help you stay focused and decisive through growth and uncertainty?

Remon: At this level, pressure doesn’t come in waves—it’s constant. When you’re responsible for people, inventory, compliance, and reputation all at once, the only way to stay focused is to establish habits that allow you to keep moving forward even when the day tries to pull you in a thousand directions.

One habit that’s been huge for me is my daily list. Every morning, I write down what must get done that day, and that list outranks everything—calls, emails, and random “urgent” problems that pop up. If I don’t protect those two or three critical tasks, I end up in firefighter mode all day, putting out fires but not actually building. The daily grind will always be loud. As a leader, it’s my job to make sure we’re still moving the mission forward.

When uncertainty hits, I return to principle. If a decision doesn’t protect the customer experience and the integrity of what we’re building, it’s a distraction. I don’t rely on motivation—I rely on structure, standards, and repeatable systems. I’ve also learned to be allergic to “almost,” because in regulated industries and real operations, “almost right” not only becomes expensive fast, but in some cases can actually become a make-or-break situation. And I keep people around me who tell me the truth, not what I want to hear—especially my brothers and the close circle that’s been with me through the growth. For me, focus isn’t a mood. It’s discipline.

FreshBox® appeals to both first-time collectors and seasoned aficionados. How do you design for inclusivity without compromising sophistication?

Remon: When we designed the FreshBox® system, I spent a lot of time studying how seasoned smokers actually think - how they evaluate a cigar, the decision process behind what they choose, how they build a collection over time, even how they unwind in cigar lounges. I also leaned on my own experiences visiting those lounges and seeing firsthand what makes the ritual feel premium and intentional. My goal was to bring that experience home, but make it even more accessible. I wanted a first-time collector to be able to go through a similar thought process and still land on a great choice—without needing years of trial and error. So instead of overwhelming people or talking down to them, we give the right amount of information, organized in a way that feels natural: origin, wrapper/binder/filler, vitola, intensity, and key notes—presented clearly so anyone can understand it and make a confident decision.

To me, inclusivity isn’t about making something “simpler” in a cheap way. It’s about making it intuitive without making it basic. FreshBox® is built so a novice can immediately feel confident, while a seasoned aficionado still finds the respect, the performance, the aesthetics, and the restraint of traditional humidors. We don’t pander to experienced smokers, and we don’t intimidate new ones. Sophistication isn’t complexity - it is effortless excellence.

Sustainability and smart materials are built into FreshBox®’s foundation. How important is environmental responsibility in shaping the future of premium consumer goods?

Remon: Environmental responsibility is becoming more important every year—not as a marketing angle, but as part of what “modern premium” actually means. I can’t claim to be an environmental guru, but a lot of this started from personal experience and the waste I kept seeing in the cigar world. Traditionally, cigars are sold in wooden boxes with hardware, adhesives, and multiple layers of materials, and a huge percentage of that ends up getting tossed. When we stepped back and looked at the system, we realized we could cut out a significant amount of waste from the equation by sourcing cigars without relying on those traditional boxes as the primary packaging.

That thinking also influenced our material choices. Our humidors don’t use wood. Instead, we use a recyclable expanded polypropylene (EPP) interior with a durable outer shell—materials chosen to be long-lasting and practical, not disposable. The point is to build something you keep and use for years, not something that gets replaced constantly.

Premium used to mean heavier, more excessive, and often more wasteful. The future is different. The future is smarter—better materials, longer product life, less unnecessary materials, and results that actually follow through for the customer. At the end of the day, that’s our responsibility: deliver an elevated experience while being more thoughtful about what we put into the world.

As your career evolves, how has your personal definition of success changed—from building brands to building long-term impact?

Remon: For a long time, I didn’t really think about a formal definition of success. In a way, I still feel like we’re just getting started, even though it’s been over 20 years. Early on, success looked like winning: selling out, scaling fast, hitting the next milestone, proving people wrong. But over time, that changed. Now I measure success more by whether we’re building something that lasts and actually matters.

If I had to boil it down, success is being able to create a product or service I’m genuinely proud of—something that brings people joy and, in some way, improves their lives. It’s also building a business that can endure, because longevity creates stability for everyone depending on it.

That part has become deeply personal. Being able to provide consistent jobs matters. You spend so much of your life with your team—sometimes as much as your own family—so those relationships and that responsibility carry weight. To me, real success is sustainable: sustaining the brand, sustaining the mission, and sustaining the people who help build it. Success used to feel like the scoreboard. Now it feels like the legacy.

For men aspiring to move from hustle-driven entrepreneurship to legacy-building leadership, what mindset shift do you believe is most critical?

Remon: The most critical shift for me was moving from building products to building businesses and systems. Products come and go. Trends change. Even great products eventually fade. But a system—if it’s built right—can grow over time, adapt, and keep delivering value long after the original hype is gone. On a deeper level, it’s moving from “How do I win?” to “How do I build something that stays true, even when I’m not in the room?” Hustle is often personality-driven. Legacy is systems-driven.

Legacy-building leadership means committing to the unsexy work: process, compliance, training, quality control, and clear standards. It means protecting the brand when shortcuts are tempting, and building a culture where the standard doesn’t drop when pressure rises. When you do that, the business stops relying on your energy to survive—and starts earning the right to last.

Looking ahead, what’s next for Remon Mansour and the CigarBros® universe—and how do you hope your influence extends beyond the products you create?

Remon: My focus in the premium cigar world, beyond the immediate, is to keep developing the at-home user experience and to keep building community around it. What’s next is continuing to expand CigarBros® from a product company into a platform—preservation, supply, education, retail experience, and a kind of “new luxury” that makes cigars more approachable without stripping away the tradition. A big part of that is cultivating connections through our CB Reward app. The goal is to make it easier for people to engage with the culture, discover that sense of belonging, and never feel like they’re enjoying cigars alone—whether that’s through rewards, content, shared experiences, or community-driven moments that bring people together.

And that’s ultimately how I hope my influence extends beyond the products. I want it to show up in how people feel: more confident in what they’re buying, more connected to the ritual, and more proud to share something that used to feel intimidating. Because at the end of the day, we’re not just shipping cigars—we’re protecting a culture and making room for the next generation to step into it like they belong.