NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rent the Runway today announced the appointment of Brian Donato as Chief Supply Chain Officer, effective March 16, 2020. Brian will oversee Rent the Runway’s customer fulfillment operation, including reverse logistics, customer service, warehousing, inventory restoration, transportation, operational excellence and distribution network expansion. He will report to Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Hyman. In conjunction with Brian Donato’s appointment, Rent the Runway also announced today that it has appointed Mike Roth, former Vice President of Amazon’s Global Customer Fulfillment Operations & Transportation, to its Board of Directors effective January 22, 2020. Mike Indresano, former Senior Vice President of Walmart’s eCommerce Transportation, former Vice President of Amazon Transportation Services, and former Vice President of Operations for FedEx SmartPost, is also joining Rent the Runway as a Senior Transportation Executive.
Brian Donato is an accomplished supply chain leader with extensive expertise in operations and logistics. Donato joins Rent the Runway from Bowery Farming where he most recently built the operations team for the New York based start-up. During his time at Bowery Farming, the company raised $150M, launched two farms and expanded distribution from five stores to more than 100 grocery outlets in the Northeast. Prior to joining Bowery, Brian spent seven years at Amazon, where he held several senior operational roles including leading the North American Customer Returns, Worldwide Fresh, Worldwide Pantry and half of the North American Fulfillment Network, which at the time included 24 Fulfillment Centers and a team of 30,000 employees. Brian's time at Amazon Fresh coincided with its largest US growth period where it expanded from four to 12 cities and saw order volume increase by more than 500% in less than 12 months. Earlier in his career, Brian ran operations for General Motors, Diebold and Moen.
“As the pioneer of rental and leader in reverse logistics, operational transformation to enhance our customer experience is one of our highest priorities,” said Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway’s Co-Founder and CEO. “Brian’s leadership and experience in operations and logistics will be a valuable asset to the company as we continue to advance our end-to-end differentiated operational capabilities to capitalize on our future growth opportunities.”
“Rent the Runway is the apparel rental category creator and I am inspired by the enormous market opportunities ahead for this groundbreaking brand,” said Donato. “I am looking forward to working closely with talent across the organization to unlock further efficiencies and provide our community more and faster access to Rent the Runway’s closet in the cloud.”
Rent the Runway’s newest Board Member, Mike Roth was a key leader at Amazon from July 1999 until June 2019. He is credited as one of the senior leaders and architects of Amazon's transportation and operational prowess over the past 20 years. While at Amazon, Roth worked in the US, as well as across Germany, the UK and China in numerous operational roles, including participating in the integration of Amazon Robotics into the company’s fulfillment centers. During his time leading Amazon’s North America team, Roth supervised the successful expansion of the company’s Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service, the creation of a new network of sortation centers that enabled Sunday delivery and guided expansive growth efforts of the company’s fulfillment network. In his most recent role as Vice President of Global Customer Fulfillment Operations, he was responsible for leading Amazon’s fulfillment teams in North America, Europe, Japan and India.
Mike is currently on the board for several private equity-owned companies, as well as a board advisor to a fintech unicorn in London.
“I’ve always been wowed by how Amazon has innovated the customer experience of retail over the past few decades, and thereby disrupted the way we shop. Much of Amazon’s success is clearly due to its leadership and forward thinking in operations and transportation and much of that is due to Mike Roth. To have a leader of Mike Roth’s stature, experience and knowledge join Rent the Runway’s Board at this point of our growth trajectory is an absolute honor and gives me even more confidence in the continued innovation of our closet in the cloud,” said Hyman.
“I’ve been incredibly impressed with Rent the Runway’s disruptive business and am looking forward to providing expertise and guidance to bolster the company’s logistical capabilities,” said Mike Roth. “Given growing consumer focus on sustainability and other secular tailwinds, I believe consumers will increasingly embrace rental as a better model of consumption. Rent the Runway is one of the first companies I’ve seen that has the potential to shift consumer behavior the way Amazon has over the last twenty years,” he continued.
Mike Indresano will also join Rent the Runway as Senior Transportation Executive. Indresano is a talented and seasoned executive with over 30 years of logistics experience. He brings a wealth of expertise with particular strengths in the areas of eCommerce transportation, package sortation, and final mile solutions. Most recently, Mike served as the SVP for Walmart eCommerce Transportation where he led the implementation of next day delivery service for Walmart.com customers. Prior to Walmart, Mike held roles as Vice President of Amazon Transportation Services and Vice President of Operations for FedEx SmartPost, where he used his innovative and strategic vision to improve delivery speed and reduce costs. At Amazon, Mike led teams that launched 7-day delivery, built sortation infrastructure to unlock USPS final mile, acquired the first planes for Prime Air and introduced the first trailers for in-house surface transportation.
About Rent the Runway
Rent the Runway is transforming the way modern women get dressed and disrupting the $2.4 trillion global fashion industry by enabling women to rent, versus buy, clothing. Founded in 2009 with a vision to build the world’s first living closet, RTR believes that women everywhere will soon have a subscription to fashion. By creating a new model of dynamic ownership, RTR has made apparel rental an indispensable utility while also powering women to feel their best every day. RTR offers apparel, accessories and home decor from over 700 designer partners and has built in-house proprietary technology and a one-of-a-kind reverse logistics operation. Under Co-Founder and CEO Jennifer Hyman’s leadership, Rent the Runway has been named to CNBC’s “Disruptor 50” five times in ten years, and has been placed on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list multiple times. RTR has five retail stores of the future and employs nearly 1,700 people, all of whom have equalized benefits across the organization.