Go figure...the guy why belongs to a church that bans smoking made bazillions off of
Big Tobacco.
They were pursuing a lucrative target: determining what Russian smokers wanted out of a cigarette -- specifically, a Western cigarette. "We had to develop a brand the Russians would smoke," Ghosh explained to The Huffington Post. For one study, they interviewed more than 1,000 smokers. "We stopped the bus and offered them cigarettes. And they all queued."
Ghosh’s work for cigarette companies was chaotic, unbridled and, ultimately, deadly. To Mitt Romney and his colleagues at Bain & Co., it was a chance to rake in money. Ghosh said he reported directly to Romney, who was excited about the Russian market. "He was my boss," Ghosh said.
At the time, Romney was CEO of Bain & Co., the Boston-based consulting firm that launched his white-collar career and led him into the high-stakes world of corporate buyouts. Although Romney's activities helming the private equity giant Bain Capital have drawn significant attention, his role at Bain & Co. has received almost no public scrutiny. A Huffington Post investigation into Bain's tobacco work found that the consulting firm helped Philip Morris increase its revenues in the U.S., and aided two other tobacco titans as they vied to move forcefully into the Russian market.
