GOLDNER

Alfred J. Verrecchia will step down in May as chief executive officer of Hasbro to become chairman of the Pawtucket toymaker and be replaced by Brian Goldner, currently chief operating officer, the company announced yesterday.

Hasbro, the world’s second-largest toymaker, announced the changes during a videoconference with employees held after it released its quarterly earnings report.

Verrecchia told The Journal during a telephone interview yesterday that his approach always has been, “As long as I’m having a lot of fun and things are going well [then] I’m going to keep going at it. [But] I think the time is right.”

The changes in the company’s executive suite have been in the making for several years, as Alan G. Hassenfeld reduced his involvement with the company his family founded in the 1920s.

Hassenfeld turned over the chief executive role to Verrecchia, his second-in-command, in 2003. Hassenfeld kept the chairman’s position for himself.

Hassenfeld then became Hasbro’s non-employee chairman in January 2006, a move he said would give him more time to advocate for children and workplace safety.

Hassenfeld now has reduced his role further, limiting his duties to head of the executive committee of the board of directors.

As Hassenfeld’s role has changed, so has Verrecchia’s.

He has been with Hasbro for more than 40 years, one year less than G.I. Joe, the iconic action figure that became the company’s first big hit. Verrecchia, of Warwick, turns 65 next week.

He worked first for Merrill Hassenfeld, whose father and uncle, Henry and Hillel, founded the company as a pencil-box business in 1923. After Merrill Hassenfeld died in 1979, his oldest son, Stephen, became Verrecchia’s boss. When Stephen Hassenfeld died a decade later, his younger brother, Alan, took over as head of the company.

Verrecchia came to work at Hasbro in 1965 as a 22-year-old college dropout who wanted practical accounting experience before an expected return to school. He eventually went to the University of Rhode Island, receiving both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees there. He also holds an honorary doctorate from URI.

Over time, he became much more than a bookkeeper at Hasbro, rising to chief financial officer, chief operating officer and then company president in 2000.

Verrecchia became chief executive officer in 2003, when Hassenfeld relinquished the role.

“Since Stevie left us there’s been only one person who, through thick and thin, has been there for us, for our shareholders, and for me,” Hassenfeld said at the time.

Verrecchia took the day-to-day responsibilities of running the nation’s number-two toymaker. He helped complete a turnaround centered on reinvigorating its classic toys and games and adapting the company’s lineup to the increasing influence of electronics.

“The one thing you want to do is leave the company in a little bit better shape than when you get it,” Verrecchia said.

The company’s stock rose 60 percent from his appointment as CEO in May 2003 through the end of last week. Net income more than doubled and sales climbed 22 percent.

Wayne S. Charness, Hasbro’s senior vice president for corporate communications, said the company’s employees apparently appreciated Verrecchia’s efforts.

“The moving standing ovation that the employees gave him says it all. He is respected and admired for being the great leader that he is,” Charness said.

Goldner’s role has grown steadily in his years at Hasbro.

A 1985 graduate of Dartmouth College, the Huntington, N.Y., native entered the toy business after more than a decade in advertising.

Goldner was working for a division of J. Walter Thompson Co. in 1997 when he jumped to one of its clients — Bandai America Ltd. — the company that brought Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Digimon to the world.

In March 2000, Goldner switched companies again, leaving Bandai America for Tiger Electronics, a Hasbro division.

After first working for Hasbro in Chicago, Goldner moved to Rhode Island in 2001. He lives in Barrington with his wife, Barbara, and their two children.

He was president of Hasbro’s billion-dollar U.S. Toy Group when Verrecchia became CEO and added responsibilities for operations in the Far East.

Goldner became chief operating officer in 2006, taking responsibility for product development and supply-chain management.

He takes charge as the company’s evolution moves to another stage, adapting more electronics and video components into its lineup of traditional toys and games.

“It is the big pendulum swing from being a manufacturer of toys to being an owner of entertainment properties,” Goldner told The Journal before the movie featuring the companys Transformers line of toys debuted in Providence last summer.

He was co-executive producer of the movie, along with Steven Spielberg.

Hasbro (HAS:NYSE) generated more than a $1 billion in revenue from the Transformers movie and toys.

“Transformers has established itself as a property than can deliver entertainment and product that resonates with kids and adults alike,” Verrecchia told equity analysts yesterday. “Transformers was not only a theatrical success, it was our leading brand.”

The three-year effort to bring Transformers toys to the screen as building-size mechanical beings is a brand-enhancing method Hasbro plans to repeat with other toy lines as company managers look to broaden the ways in which children and adults interact with its products. Hasbro moved electronic-toy development into its Tiger product line, bought back digital gaming licenses, struck deals for mobile-phone games, sold game licenses to slot-machine makers and created a theatrical production based on one of its toy lines, Littlest Pet Shop.

The company signed a licensing agreement last year with Electronic Arts to create electronic versions of some of Hasbro’s most popular games.

“How do we keep reinventing these brands? What are the right ways to create immersive brand experiences?” Goldner asked rhetorically during an interview last June in Hasbro’s headquarters.

Yesterday, Hasbro and Electronic Arts announced it will roll out mobile phone games based on the popular Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Risk and Yahtzee games followed by Littlest Pet Shop and Nerf games for Nintendo game consoles.

Later this year, the company will roll out toys tied to the films Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

A movie based on G.I. Joe is due out next year, as is a Transformers sequel.

Hasbro reported yesterday that its revenue rose last year to $3.84 billion, up from $3.15 billion a year earlier. Net income for the year rose 45 percent to $333 million.

Hasbro’s fourth-quarter earnings rose to $133.7 million, or 84 cents a share, from $108.3 million, or 62 cents a share, a year earlier. Quarterly sales rose 16 percent to $1.3 billion.

Sales in the quarter rose 8 percent at Hasbro’s North American division, although operating profit fell 22 percent, partly due to higher royalties and advertising expenses. Operating profit was also affected by Hasbro’s investment in its Wizards of the Coast online gaming initiative.

Hasbro’s international segment sales, meanwhile, climbed 29 percent as operating profit rose 40 percent.

Hasbro said costs will climb this year due to the rising price of labor and commodities, the appreciation of the Chinese currency and product testing. It plans price increases this year to offset costs that have risen 14 percent to 15 percent.

Verrecchia said the company plans to hold its margins steady with those of 2007, and added that he expected a strong 2008.

“We have all the pieces in place” for strong earnings this year, he said.

Shares of Hasbro rose 54 cents yesterday to close at $26.41.

pgrimald@projo.com