Vivian Kaye Farber

Class of 2016

Vivian Kaye Farber has made it her life’s goal to keep her family strong and ready for the next generation. Born April 4, 1950, in Brooklyn, to Holocaust survivors Henry and Helen Kaye, Vivian grew up with the values of the importance of seizing the moment and being sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. As a young child, she spent her days off from school helping out at the family’s business, The Madelaine Chocolate Co., but she pursued an early interest in Health and Physical Education, eventually earning a Master’s Degree in Applied Physiology from New York Teacher’s College.

She officially joined Madelaine Chocolate in 1974, where she worked closely with her father and her uncle, Jack Gold, the co-founders of the company, to develop the Sales & Customer Service Departments as the business experienced a five-fold increase in manufacturing and sales.

In 1977, she married 2008 Candy Hall of Fame inductee Jorge Farber and moved to Dallas, where she served as the Southwest Regional Sales Manager for Madelaine until 1984, when she returned to the home office in Rockaway, NY, to focus on marketing and product development. This led to her becoming well-known internationally in the industry for her work developing Madelaine’s hundreds of foils. Recognizing the need for innovation, Vivian led a major IT transformation in the company in the early ’90s, and her focus on product innovation also led to the company winning Product of the Year awards from the NCSA in 1999 and 2005.

Today, Vivian is a major stakeholder in the company, serving as Executive Vice-President, General Manager.

She says her most meaningful accomplishment was reopening the company nine months after the devastation of Super Storm Sandy, when she was a major advocate in the decision to rebuild the business. Her commitment was both financial and emotional, starting with opening her home as an outpost location for the operation.

Away from work, she participates in volunteer and charitable work, including industry associations. She was convention co-host for the 2015 Retail Confectioners International Annual Convention in New York. As Director of the Henry Kaye Charitable Foundation, Vivian leads the charity in the distribution of funds to institutions and individuals in need.

Along with Jorge, she was deeply involved and a major contributor to the building of a home for severely handicapped children in Israel. She also served for many years as president of the local day school PTA, on the Board of the Belle Harbor Jewish Center, as a volunteer teacher at the local school, and she generously supports numerous charitable organizations.

Vivian has two siblings, Dr. Arthur Kaye and Dr. Miriam Kaye Fleisher, and with Jorge has three children, Shoshana Steinthal, Estee Farber and Debbie Boyarsky, and three grandchildren, Lily, Neal and Eliot.