Luxury linens company Boll & Branch has hired Ralph Lauren vet Jonathan Bottomley as chief marketing officer.
Bottomley was previously Ralph Lauren’s global CMO.
“We’re pretty values-oriented as a business. The typical marketer that comes off marketing factory No. 6 doesn’t work for us because they’re inherently more focused on the revenue than the values,” said Scott Tannen, Boll & Branch founder and CEO.
That’s what struck him about Bottomley, he said—he was willing to focus on both.
Tannen and Bottomley met through A. Rory Finlay, a marketing industry vet Tannen reported to early in his career at Wrigley Co. Tannen had been looking to bring on a CMO to help tell Boll & Branch’s story and build brand awareness.
“We’ve gotten pretty big, but we’re still really small relative to the overall category, and were recognizing [we] needed new talent and seasoning and experience to bring us to the next level,” Tannen said.
Summit-based Boll & Branch, eight years into existence, generates more than $100 million in annual revenue. The largely online retailer is headquartered in Summit, but there are brick-and-mortar locations in Short Hills, Greenwich, Conn., and Boca Raton, Fla., and shop-in-shops at Nordstroms nationwide.
The company continues to “grow like a weed,” Tannen said, noting that he and his co-owner wife Missy hired more than 40 people in 2020 alone and that they might need a bigger headquarters when office life returns post-pandemic.
Of Bottomley, Tannen said, “We have a good team in place and bringing him in is just a great boost for our leadership and, for me, I think I’ll learn so much from him.”
