Bruce Berman
LOMBARD, Ill. — By stepping back into the CEO seat he last occupied years ago, Bruce Berman believes he’s setting up Top 100 retailer The RoomPlace for continued success.
Berman has poured some four decades of his life into the Lombard, Ill.-based business that was founded by his grandfather in 1912, including raising its visibility through better advertising, helping expand its footprint from a single store in Chicago’s North Side to its current count of 29 stores, and selling it and buying it back from private equity. But he believes the steps taken over the next few years will be among the most important.
“I’m not interested in my legacy being ‘he owned a Top 100 company and was able to sell to private equity and buy it back,’” Berman told Furniture Today. “That’s well and good, but I didn’t come back to do that again. I did it because I felt if I didn’t, a lot of things I worked hard to achieve and I’m proud of there might not have a bright future. I made the decision to take over.”
Berman, who spent the last decade as chairman after he reacquired The RoomPlace in 2011 (he and his family sold to a private equity firm in 2004), said he had become dissatisfied with the job done by its two most recent CEOs over the past decade, neither of whom had furniture retail experience. So now, the plan is for him to take a more active role in the goings-on, splitting time between Chicago and his home in Colorado, while mentoring the next leader.
“Over the first year or two, I’m going to evaluate who I think I can promote within to president and develop them so two to three years from now, I’ll have a CEO who has worked under me for a couple of years,” Berman said.
It’s a full-circle return of sorts for Berman, who joined the company in 1977. Over the years, Berman has shown a savvy eye for business, first by understanding the power of advertising to amplify The RoomPlace’s message.
He said that lesson was learned when he needed a new camera for a family vacation and visited a shop he had seen in commercials. “When I got in, the store wasn’t that big of a deal. However, it hit me that they were a big TV advertiser, and they were as big as they made themselves look on TV,” Berman recalled. “That got me thinking about maybe there’s something we can do.”
After early successes with commercials, Berman realized that expansion made sense as the next move, particularly since adding another store in Chicago, wouldn’t require an additional ad spend.
“If I had a store on the South Side, it’s the same TV. That was my motivation for opening the second store. TV started to work, and then we picked the right location for the second store. From that point on, we got rolling,” he said. “As we moved forward, we led with being a major furniture marketer in Chicago. We continued to open a store or two a year. Next thing you know, it’s the late ’90s, and we’ve got 14 stores.”
Berman, his mother and brother opted to sell to private equity in 2004, and Berman remained as CEO for a while before being fired during the Great Recession.
Since reacquiring the business, Berman has made a few strategic steps, including the acquisition of Apt2B, which has helped increase The RoomPlace’s share of online business. Berman said he believes it’s a model for future growth.
“My goal is to have a business that’s profitable in brick-and-mortar and e-commerce,” he said, noting that the value of e-commerce was made crystal clear to everybody in the industry during the early stages of the pandemic.
It’s that head for business and the lessons he learned over these many years with The RoomPlace that he plans to impart to his hand-picked successor.
“I have 40-some years of experience, but now that I’m here, I’m more than willing to do this for a couple of years if that means ensuring the business is going to stay a family business, and it will be there for the employees, and there will be opportunities for my children and grandchildren,” Berman said.
Valerie Berman-Knight
And in the time since he started looking, one potential leader to step up has been his daughter, Valerie Berman-Knight, vice president of marketing, who is preparing to return to Chicago after a few years of living in Florida.
“The potential of her running the company became very attractive,” Berman said. “She bought a house in Chicago and is getting ready to move here at the end of the school year. If things work well, and I think they will, she’s closer to being able to run the company today than the people I hired. And who’s better to be her consigliere than me?”
Berman said the idea of a fourth generation of family leadership has created more than its share of enthusiasm internally.
“Everybody is so excited that I’m going to lead the company for a couple of years and (that) I’m working with my daughter and getting her ready to run the company,” he said. “They want to work for a family business with the family running it. That’s the heart of the story.”
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December 06, 2021 at 08:32PM
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Berman's return sets RoomPlace up for sustained success - Furniture Today
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