Dive Brief:
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Serta Simmons Bedding on Tuesday named Melanie Huet chief commercial officer and Shelley Huff chief operating officer for the company. Both will report to Chairman and CEO David Swift.
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Huet and Huff, who currently serve as Serta's chief marketing officer and Tuft & Needle's CEO, respectively, will continue to hold these titles as they take on additional responsibilities, the company said in an announcement emailed to Retail Dive.
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The company made other leadership appointments, including Bob Hellyer as executive vice president of strategic initiatives, Cream Pepito as senior vice president and chief technology officer for DTC, and Bhavani Subramaniam as senior vice president of integrated supply chain.
Dive Insight:
The leadership appointments are part of Serta's transformation and growth strategy and will support the company's mission of having a digital-first mindset and consumer-inspired innovation, among other things.
As the chief commercial officer, Huet will be responsible for leading an expanded marketing, innovation and sales team. Alongside Chief Sales Officer Derek Miller, she will focus on growing Serta's e-commerce business, strengthening its omnichannel capabilities and increasing speed to market.
Huff, in her new COO role, will oversee Serta's supply chain and customer experience teams, and continue to lead the company's direct-to-consumer business and Tuft & Needle brand.
The company's strong focus on e-commerce comes as shopping online increasingly becomes more popular for consumers — even among high-touch categories like home goods — and the pandemic has only heightened that demand.
As online players like Casper, Leesa Sleep and Nectar disrupted the mattress category and began to take market share, Serta in 2017 announced it would develop a bed-in-a-box product of its own to compete. The company leaned into the model even further in 2018 when it merged with DTC mattress brand Tuft & Needle.
But Serta also faces financial challenges. The company announced a tender offer for around $90 million of its outstanding second-lien debt, under which debt holders could receive $0.60 on the dollar. S&P Global Ratings viewed this transaction as "distressed and tantamount to a selective default," prompting the firm to downgrade Serta's issuer credit rating to CC from CCC+, according to an emailed press release. S&P also labeled Serta's outlook as negative.
