Donna Zett, Five Star Mattress — 2008 Furniture/Today Leadership Conference
Speaker profile — President
Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, December 5, 2008
 Donna Zett |
Donna Zett is president of Five Star Mattress.
After attending the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and earning a Bachelor of Accountancy and Communications degree, Zett began her career in the up-and-coming field of Information Systems. Starting as a software programmer at ADP, she developed her business skills learning and programming retail automotive dealership software.
She continued computer programming for several years until starting her family of two boys Mike (20) and Eric (17). After a short break she began freelance programming for several companies until she responded to an ad for the Serta Mattress Company in Beloit, WI. It was an opportunity to build an IT department from the ground up and it proved to be very successful. After building the IT department, replacing the software and hardware systems, telecom and other electronic services, she was able to assist Serta in growing their infrastructure from supporting a $50 million company and three manufacturing locations to supporting an $870 million company and 23 manufacturing locations.
In 1998, Zett was tapped to create point-of-sale software for the Serta-only sleep shop chain, America's Mattress. The software, named Sleep Shop Solutions, is still in use by the chain. Being heavily entrenched in the sleep shop business was a learning experience that prepared her for her next challenge of leading the America's Mattress business development team and growing the retail chain. After enhancing the format, support systems, training and communication within the chain, she was then appointed to lead the newly formed company of Five Star Mattress, a new value line of bedding offered by the investment company, AOT Holdings. Now 15 years within the Serta organization, she awaits her next challenge.
In whatever spare time is available, Donna spends time with her family, is an avid runner and enjoys golfing.
