Wayfair has announced that its CCO Steve Oblak will retire in Q1 2024 after 14 years of leadership, and that it plans to appoint Jon Blotner (pictured) to the role.
"Steve has served as a critical part of our leadership team and played a pivotal role in Wayfair's growth, helping us grow from a $250m business when he joined to $12b in net revenue today," says Wayfair's CEO, co-chairman and co-founder Niraj Shah. "He oversaw countless milestones, from helping to launch the Wayfair brand as we brought together hundreds of sites into a single platform, to launching new categories, business lines, and geographies while overseeing our North American and European businesses, to leading our debut into physical retail.
"He leaves us in great hands with Jon, who has been instrumental in building and growing a wide range of our commercial offerings over the last seven years. I look forward to seeing Jon take the helm of our commercial organisation and build on this momentum as we further solidify our position as the leader in home."
Jon brings to the role nearly two decades of experience in growing retail businesses, technology offerings and services while also building, operating and scaling high-performing teams across a diverse range of functions.
To date at Wayfair, he has overseen the company's exclusive brands and specialty retail brands – which include AllModern, Joss & Main and Birch Lane – as well as its visual media, 3D operations and technology, merchandising as a service, advertising, and supplier acquisition and onboarding functions.
He will serve as incoming CCO beginning in July, and will formally assume the CCO role in October.
Wayfair also shared details on quarter-to-date business trends, which it says "continue to improve in spite of a difficult macro environment", with gross revenue strengthening, and now trending in the negative mid-single-digit percentage range YoY. Wayfair says that this improvement, relative to the company's last business update, has been driven by total order growth turning positive YoY during the period, offsetting lower AOVs and the impact of deflation.
"We have been very pleased by how our team's efforts have rekindled the flywheel that has powered our business for 20 years," continues Niraj. "Our core commercial offering is stronger than ever and we see momentum in the topline as our vast selection, sharp pricing, and fast, seamless delivery all resonate with customers to drive better results. We continue to take market share and execute tightly against our cost efficiency plan, driving us to adjusted EBITDA profitability in Q2. It's nice to be on offense again, and we're excited about the opportunity ahead."
