West Michigan-based global design manufacturer Herman Miller, Inc. today announced the realignment of its global structure to accelerate the implementation of Overdrive, the company’s strategy to transform the 112-year-old business into a multi-channel, modern lifestyle brand.
The new organizational structure includes the following changes: centralizing leadership for the North America Contract business segment, creating a centralized leadership structure for the specialty business segment to expedite growth, combine the functions of the strategy, mergers and acquisitions, channel development, and information technology departments, and merging creative direction and new product commercialization to foster innovation, elevate design execution, and increase speed to market.
“Today’s announcement streamlines our senior leadership structure to speed strategic execution and allow greater leverage of resources in our vertical segments,” says Brian Walker, CEO of Herman Miller. “Over the past five years, we have increased our market opportunity through geographic and customer segment expansion. This includes the acquisition of many brands that we believe are important to our long-term growth. These changes will further our efforts to build on their individual strengths and capitalize on the natural synergies within the segments.”
To support the realignment, Greg Bylsma, former COO of Herman Miller North America has been promoted to president of North America Contract. Steve Gane, has been promoted to president of specialty brands, after serving as executive vice president and president of Geiger and Herman Miller Collection. Jeremy Hocking, previous senior vice president of strategic planning and business development has been promoted to executive vice president of the same department. Ben Watson has been selected to be chief creative officer after working as the executive creative director. All promotions are effective immediately.
Herman Miller is a globally recognized provider of furnishings and related technologies and services. In 2016, the company generated $2.3 billion in revenue and employed nearly 8,000 people worldwide.
