JOSEPH BIVONA JR.'76

Vice President - Trade Development 

AOL Time Warner 

 

 

Like many college seniors counting down the weeks until they don their cap and gown, Joseph Bivona Jr. was still unclear about what he wanted to do after leaving undergraduate life behind. Luckily, he says, he had Professor Wayne Cioffari to help show him the available options and guide him in the right direction.

 

That direction has served him well over the ensuing years. It brought him to AOL Time Warner and his current position with the company as vice president of Trade Development. He is responsible for developing sales opportunities for Time Inc.'s single copy newsstand retail sales force, and serving as division spokesperson.

 

He is chairman of the General Merchandise Distribution Council and sits on the supplier board of the National Association of Convenience Stores, as well as on the Industry Affairs Committee of the Grocery Manufacturers of America.

 

Bivona earned his bachelor of science degree in Business Administration from Mercy in 1976, and has completed work toward his M.B.A. at Western New England College. Upon graduating from Mercy, he took a position with Mobil Oil Corporation, and moved through its ranks until 1985, when Coca-Cola Bottling Company of New York recruited him. 

 

Three years later, Bivona accepted a job with Time Warner - Time Distribution Services, and has been there since. He served for six years as vice president of National Accounts, where he was responsible for developing and executing national sales strategies targeted at major customers across the United States and Canada. In order to compete with other consumer packaged goods companies, he was asked in 1999 to establish AOL Time Warner's Newsstand Trade Development Department, with which he is currently involved. 

 

He was the recipient of Mercy College's Agnes O'Grady Distinguished Alumni Award in 1996, and inducted into the Delta Mu Delta national honor society in Business Administration. That same year, he received the Meredith Publishing Corporation's Excellence Award, and served as a TDS Negotiation Facilitator through Porter Henry and Company. He was nominated by Sports Illustrated, Time Inc. in 1997 for their Consumer Marketing Achievement Award.