Executive suite: Dan Siegel, Garden City

For Lifetime Brands Inc., the Garden City-based developer of about 30,000 kitchen and dining products, growing is about acquiring international partners and selling an "experience," not a product, says executive vice president Dan Siegel, 42.

In China, for example, the company is establishing its Mikasa brand through showcase shops and Internet platforms to court the country's growing middle class (which could equal the United States' total population in a few years).

To present thousands of new products a year, Lifetime taps its workforce as well as independent inventors, says Siegel, who started with the company as a salesman in 1992 and is the son of president and chief executive Jeff Siegel. New items include the "trap door" colander, the Misto olive oil sprayer, and celebrity chef Guy Fieri's cookware line.