Team has wealth of experience
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, October 19, 2008
ATLANTA — One was director of advertising for bedding major Simmons. Another, born in Germany, has written an American success story. And the third can't wait to drive cross country on a Harley-Davidson.
Meet Ron Bushman, Florian Vollmer and Cindy Williams, three key executives at design and marketing firm Info Retail, based here.
Bushman, 57, is president and owner of the company. He spent four years at Simmons as advertising manager and director of advertising. Before that, he was with a retail design agency in Atlanta. Over the years, he saw a need in the marketplace for a company that understood what happens at retail, and knows how to communicate key messages to consumers.
So he established Info Retail here in 1995. The company has steadily gained clients, experience and good reviews from its customers, keeping its business on the upswing.
Meetings with key company executives reveal that Bushman has built a strong team.
Florian Vollmer, a partner in the company and its director of design, studied in Germany and the United Kingdom before heading to Atlanta to get his master's degree in industrial design.
He believes that mattress retailers can improve the retail experience by using warmer lighting and interactive kiosks. His goal: Banish the “cold, clinical feeling” that many bedding stores evoke.
Since the mattress consumer is a female, it makes sense to have women in key positions at Info Retail. And that's the case. Cindy Williams is one of the most visible of those female employees.
“The mattress industry is very focused on women,” Bushman said. “Cindy has been a good advocate for women, from her Simmons days. She makes sure women's issues are considered.”
Williams, the Harley-loving executive, started as a temporary worker at Simmons, steadily moving up the ladder there. She quickly became a full-time employee, designing sales training programs for retail sales associates and point-of-purchase materials for retailers. When she left Simmons after almost eight years there, she was director of the specialty sleep division.
At Simmons she worked, for a while, for Bushman. That connection would later bring her to Info Retail.
After Williams left Simmons, she became southeastern regional sales manager for International Bedding. Then she joined England Home Furnishings and quickly launched its mattress line. When Bushman talked to her about expanding Info Retail's business in the furniture industry, she jumped at the chance.
“Life is lived on the mattress,” Williams said. “But in the stores, no emotion is attached to the products. They are stark and cold. It doesn't have to be that way.”
And in retail displays created by Info Retail, the company says, it isn't that way.
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