Home Decor Products
Company: Home Decor Products, Inc., Edison, New Jersey
Company Description: HDPI is the leading Internet seller of luxury and everyday brands for the home through our websites and other online channels: HomeClick, AbsoluteHome, Barbecues.com, KnobsandThings, Hechinger, PoolClick and EBay. The HDPI platform aggregates 1.2 MM unique consumers and over 500 complimentary manufacturers each month to drive awareness and incremental sales across all channels.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Executive
Nomination Title: Michael Golden, President & CEO
1. Tell the story about what this nominee achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Michael Gold led Home Décor Products to record expansion and financial growth in 2005. He oversaw the launch of two new businesses- KnobsandThings.com and Hechinger.com, extending their product offering into the appliance and tool categories. Golden’s idea to resurrect Hechinger (the once bankrupt brick-and-motor retailer that dominated the Northeast) as an online retailer proved to be the perfect entry for the Company into the tool category. At the same time, HDP experienced continued rapid growth in 2005 as revenue soared nearly 62% over 2004 topping $77.96 million and profit margin increased 1.5% to 30%.
Michael Golden was hired in July of 2002 as a consultant for HomeClick.com, a struggling internet retail company focusing primarily on kitchen and bath products. In seeing the value that he was bringing to the lifeless retailer, management (also the Company founders) stepped aside and let him take the reigns. At that point the Company was $1.7 million in debt.
Upon being named CEO and President, Golden cleaned up shop. He started to expand the reach of the product offering from kitchen and bath to other parts of the house and eventually to outdoor furnishings. Home Décor Products currently operates six websites serving luxury home products; HomeClick, AbsoluteHome, Barbecues.com, KnobsandThings, Hechinger.com and PoolClick. When Golden took over they operated only one.
Home Décor Products operates in the following categories; Kitchen, Bath, Tableware, Appliances, Lighting, Outdoor, Art, Fireplaces, Hardware, Houseware, Tools, Pools, Flooring and Accessories. Upon Golden’s entrance the Company only competed in the Kitchen and Bath sectors. Currently, the Kitchen and Bath categories make up less than 60% of sales, further showing the diversity which Michael has brought to the Company.
With this expansion of business came great results. Revenue for 2002 was $11.66 million (unprofitable); under Michael’s management revenue has jumped 569% to $77.96 million in 2005. In addition to an increase in the net sales Michael has overseen an 11% boost in gross margin (+1.5% in 2005).
Under the direction of CEO Michael Golden since 2002, Home Décor Products has emerged from an unprofitable ‘dot-com bust’ company to the leading internet retailer of luxury home products.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
http://hdpi.com/inmedia.asp
https://www.keepmedia.com/Auth.do?extId=10022&uri=/
archive/forbes/2006/0327/080.html
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:
Michael Golden has lead Home Decor Products as President and CEO since July 2002. Before joining Homeclick, Golden was the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Global Sports Interactive (now GSI commerce), which became the #1 retailer of sporting goods on the Internet in just 10 months. Previously, Golden served as Executive Vice President Corporate Development at Organic Online. While there he developed, executed, and managed the company’s New York office, founded Organic Online’s subsidiary Organic Media (and served as its President for the first year), and won and managed client relationships that included BarnesandNoble.com, Chase Bank, Colgate, Gateway Computers, Iomega, Music Blvd., Lucent Technology amongst many other industry leading accounts.
Golden received a Bachelor’s of Philosophy degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Pittsburgh where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. After attending Villanova University School of Law, Michael received a Juris Doctorate and is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar.