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Bedding industry veteran Bryan Umiker has joined King Koil as Senior Vice President of its Smartlife Mattress by King Koil™ and specialty brands.
Best known as the architect behind Bloomingdale’s highly successful luxury sleep floor, viewed by many as the most prestigious bedding sales floor in America, Umiker was most recently vice president of wholesale and retail partnerships at Casper Sleep. He also spent time as the senior buyer for bedroom and bedding at Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM), where he played a leading role in the development and opening of the bedding floor in NFM’s Dallas, TX location.
“Bryan is no question the leading merchant of luxury bedding in the United States. On top of that, he led the very successful expansion of Casper in the brick-and-mortar channel. His combination of skill on both sides of the business –retail and wholesale—translates into a powerful offering for our Smartlife series and our retail partners,” said David Binke, chief executive officer of King Koil.
Umiker will be responsible for all aspects of Smartlife, including: business development, sales and marketing, retailer support, supply chain and logistics.
Each Smartlife mattress incorporates 80 individual smart cells and eight independently controlled zones from head to toe. The mattresses offer multiple settings of firmness, allowing each person to accommodate his or her sleeping needs. Programming and monitoring of the sleep system are managed through an app that can be installed on smart devices.
The brand recently added a split-head mattress and coordinating premium adjustable base. The expanded line provides its retail partners with a luxury sleep solution that offers the functional benefits that consumers are looking for in an adjustable bed, with more premium materials and construction than the lower end adjustable bases that saturate the market today.
“I’ve partnered with David Binke and David Long for many years, and now I’m excited to join their team – the industry’s all-star team for luxury bedding. Smartlife is an exceptional luxury brand with a unique story and compelling technology that I believe will be extremely well received across retail,” said Umiker.
About King Koil
A leading global mattress manufacturer, King Koil supports more than 30 licensees in more than 90 countries where King Koil mattresses are manufactured and sold. Headquartered in Avondale, Ariz., the company has a long, rich history that reaches back to 1898 when Samuel Bronstein founded United States Bedding in St. Paul, Minn. What started out as six employees in a small factory has continued to grow. During the 1930s, U.S. Bedding improved the bedspring and was looking for a new name for its product. From there, the King Koil name was born. For more information, visit www.KingKoil.com.
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