home-furnishings
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John Reed and the value of a small detour
A turn off the road in Italy helped shape Arhaus. Four decades after founding the business with his father, John Reed is still betting on the people who make the furniture.
Sam Malouf’s business got the bigger bedroom
Sam and Kacie Malouf started selling sheets from their apartment in Logan, Utah. The business grew when they learned to make room for other people.
Jen Porter Built a Retail Career Across Every Place a Customer Can Look
From the merchant floor to a billion-dollar furniture brand, Porter learned to treat catalogs, screens and showrooms as one conversation. Her Arhaus chapter ended in July 2026, but the operating lesson is still useful: the channel is never the whole customer journey.
Frank Fleischman
A philosophy major who ended up selling sleep, Frank Fleischman runs sales and marketing for one of America's oldest mattress names - and does it from the same New Jersey mill town where Sealy has been making beds since 1907.
Laura Alber
Laura Alber is the longest-tenured female CEO on the Fortune 500, running Williams-Sonoma, Inc. since 2010. She built Pottery Barn Kids from a business plan she wrote while pregnant, then doubled the parent company's revenue and turned a furniture catalog company into one of the largest digital-first home retailers in America.