Crate & Barrel Confirms Its CEO Left The Company Last Week

Crate & Barrel, the furniture and home goods retailer, confirmed last week that CEO Doug Diemoz left after less than two years at the helm.

According to a report, the retailer verified his departure but declined to say why. Diemoz is at the center of a lawsuit lodged by competitor Restoration Hardware. Diemoz previously worked at Restoration Hardware and was recruited to head Crate & Barrel in 2015.

“I can confirm that Mr. Diemoz left the company,” spokeswoman Vicki Lang said in the report.

The report, citing an internal memo, reported Neela Montgomery, an executive board member at Crate & Barrel’s parent company, the Otto Group, will take on “most of Doug’s current responsibilities, working closely with Steve ‘Woody’ Woodward, president and chief merchant, and Mike Relich, chief operating officer, and the rest of the executive leadership team.”

Diemoz was tapped in 2015 to fill the empty seat after Sascha Bopp, who had been CEO since 2012, left.

In November, Crate and Barrel launched an exclusive, “highly curated” marketplace for consumers to broaden their tastes for home décor. Arguably, the move emulates what Amazon is doing by working with external sellers in order to bump up the number of items available on the site and entice a wider range of customers to make purchases.

According to a release, the Northbrook, IL-based company is partnering with RevCascade — most known for being a platform offering enhanced options for retailers and the brands they carry — to launch the marketplace as “an extended aisle of unique products” off the main website. Products include items from new brands, new products from existing brands, exclusive items only found through the marketplace and one-of-a-kind, high-end products from designers around the world.

The goal is for retailers to use the platform to launch, operate and scale their own marketplaces and ultimately increase revenue and consumer loyalty. The focus is mostly on small appliances and kitchen tools that Crate and Barrel doesn’t typically ship or sell. Crate and Barrel said it sees the expansion and extension as a benefit to the consumer, if nothing else.