Home electronics and lifestyle products retailer The Sharper Image has appointed Lance Reese as CEO.
Reese held the position of chief operating officer at the retailer for two years, where he was responsible for all corporate operating units, including marketing, merchandising, business development, international sourcing, operations, procurement, technology and customer service.
Prior to joining Sharper Image, Reese was chief operating officer for consumer products company The Limu Co., as well as chief information officer for consumer goods e-commerce company Altrec.
“From an operational perspective, between IT, the warehouse, call center and our inventory teams, Lance has upgraded our processes, systems and efficiencies, which has translated into a better experience for our customers and improved profitability,” says David Katzman, managing partner of Camelot Venture Group, which owns and operates Sharper Image.
“We started working on our holiday catalog back in January and are very excited to launch our new holiday edition to over 25 million people,” says Reese.
Sharper Image is No. 900 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000.
In other e-commerce news:
- Commerce network vendor for retailers and brands CommerceHub Inc. has named Tom Barone as its chief commercial officer. Prior to CommerceHub, Barone was vice president, general manager of North America operations for more than six years at eBay Enterprise (GSI Commerce). He also spent 17 years at GE in a variety of executive roles, including general manager of the Americas Supply Chain for GE Plastics Americas. “Tom’s leadership skills and long history of developing operational excellence will ensure we continue to deliver an exceptional experience for the retailers and brands who utilize our platform and network to grow revenue, expand merchandise assortment and effectively compete in today’s digital world,” says Frank Poore, founder and CEO at CommerceHub.
- Coupon company RetailMeNot Inc. has appointed Vivek Sagi as chief technology officer. Before joining RetailMeNot, Sagi spent three years at Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1 in the Top 1000) as head of product and engineering for Amazon Business Procurement Solutions and as chief technology officer for Woot.com, an Amazon company. There, he led the software engineering, business analytics and product teams.
-
Direct-mail advertising company PebblePost has raised $25 million in a Series C round of funding led by Advance Venture Partners (AVP). AVP joins prior investors that include RRE, Greycroft and Tribeca Venture Partners. PebblePost uses online interest and intent data to send mail that influences at-home purchase decisions and drives conversions across online and physical transaction channels. Brands on the platform have the ability to run direct-mail campaigns rather than digital campaigns. The new investment is intended to strengthen the company’s marketing abilities and fill more leadership positions.
- Former comScore Inc. executive Timur Yarnall has joined marketing insights company Hitwise as its new CEO and president, a newly created position for the company. At comScore, Yarnall served as senior vice president, advertising products for nearly four years, where he ran the teams responsible for comScore’s core advertising product platforms. Prior to that, he was the CEO and co-founder of bot detection and digital advertising security company MdotLabs, which was acquired by comScore in 2014.
- Narvar, a post-purchase customer engagement platform, raised $30 million in a Series C funding round led by Accel, who also led Narvar’s Series A round. Since its founding in 2012, Narvar has raised $64 million in total funding from investors, including Battery Ventures, as well as new investors Salesforce Ventures and Scale Venture Partners. With the new funding, Narvar says it plans to focus on product innovation and hire more employees to support its growing locations. In the last 12 months, Narvar has doubled revenue and employee headcount and added more than 100 brands, including Costco Wholesale Corp. (No. 12 in the Top 1000) and Lululemon Athletica Inc. (No. 90), to its roster.
