Katz, Iasiello Join Emerald's Executive Team

January 16, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Executive Changes on January 17, 2012

Industry veterans Jeff Katz, John Iasiello have joined full-line furniture vendor Emerald Home Furnishings' product development executive team.

Katz serves as vice president of upholstery, and Iasiello is vice president of wood products. Both bring a wealth of experience from the manufacturing and retail furniture sectors.

In addition, current Vice President Robert Kirchmeyer has taken on a new executive operations position. All of these positions report to Emerald President David Beckmann.

Katz comes to Emerald with more than 32 years in the furniture industry, most recently at Schnadig, where he was senior vice president of business development for all segments of Schnadig's portfolio of brands. Prior to that, he has worked in both retail and manufacturing with Levitz, John M. Smyth Homemakers, Sears Homelife, Broyhill and others.

John Iasiello also brings more than 30 years of furniture industry experience to Emerald Home, most recently as senior vice president of product development at A.R.T Furniture, where he led all aspects of the company's product development efforts, including the development of proprietary collections for dealers such as Macy's and Art Van Furniture. His retail and manufacturing background includes Huffman Koos, Macy's, Breuners Home Furnishings, Natuzzi and Broyhill.

"Splitting the roles of product development and bringing on these amazingly talented individuals will allow more focus and efficiency in each category and help Emerald enter a new era of design and quality in our product offerings," said Tacoma, Wash.-based Emerald's president, David Beckmann. "The strength of this management team will also allow current vice president, Robert Kirchmeyer, to move into the operations side of Emerald Home. His time and efforts will be focused on critical operations issue to insure Emerald Home continues as a world-class supplier in the next 50 years."