General Foods Executive Named Mattel President

Robert Sansone, a 45-year-old vice president with General Foods, was named president of Mattel USA on Tuesday.

Sansone replaces Thomas J. Kalinske, who left Mattel in May to become president of Universal Matchbox, a competing toy company, after he was apparently passed over for the chairman’s job at Mattel.

Sansone spent most of his 24-year career with General Foods as a marketing executive, where he helped revive that company’s troubled Brazilian and Venezuelan operations. Most recently, he was a group vice president.

Like Mattel’s current chairman and chief executive, John W. Amerman, Sansone is joining the nation’s No. 2 toy maker without toy industry experience. Amerman, who became Mattel’s chairman in February, came to Mattel after 15 years as a marketing executive at Warner Lambert.

Sansone beat out five Mattel executives for the president’s job in part because of his experience overseas, said John A. Sage, a Mattel vice president. Mattel derives half of its sales and nearly all its profit from its foreign operations.

Sansone will oversee Mattel’s large but troubled domestic toy operations, which accounted for about half the company’s sales last year but lost money nonetheless. Despite what the company has described as brisk domestic sales of its new Captain Power laser toy, Mattel’s performance in the United States “is not what we would like,” Sage said. Sansone wasn’t available for comment on Tuesday.

Mattel also appointed Raymond W. Ferris, chief financial officer, to the new post of executive vice president, strategic planning. In an interview, Ferris, 46, said that the position was created because “after discussions with John Amerman, we concluded it was an area that needed some focus.” Ferris, 46, said he didn’t seek the job as president of Mattel USA.

Mattel director Charles J. Lee, 61, was named executive vice president and chief financial officer, succeeding Ferris. Lee is currently a senior vice president at E. F. Hutton.

Sage said the new officers will report directly to Amerman.