Rent the Runway Snags Former Amazon Exec to Lead Supply Chain
Rent the Runway has appointed Brian Donato as chief supply chain officer, effective March 16. Donato will oversee Rent the Runway’s customer fulfillment operation, including reverse logistics, customer service, warehousing, inventory restoration, transportation, operational excellence and distribution network expansion. Donato will report to co-founder and CEO Jennifer Hyman.
“As the pioneer of rental and leader in reverse logistics, operational transformation to enhance our customer experience is one of our highest priorities,” said Hyman. “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.”
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. Prior to Bowery, Brian spent seven years at Amazon, where he held several senior operational roles including leading the customer returns, worldwide Fresh, worldwide Pantry and half of the North American fulfillment network. His 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.
“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.”
In conjunction with Donato’s appointment, Rent the Runway announced today the appointment of Mike Roth, former VP of Amazon’s global customer fulfillment operations & transportation, to its board of directors. 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. He 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.
“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 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 20 years.”
In addition, Mike Indresano, former SVP of Walmart’s e-commerce transportation, former VP of Amazon transportation services, and former VP of operations for FedEx SmartPost, is also joining Rent the Runway as a senior transportation executive. He brings a wealth of expertise with particular strengths in the areas of e-commerce 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 at Walmart.com.