Online furniture retailer names new CEO

Jon Barker was named CEO at Omaha-based online furniture retailer Hayneedle to fill a position previously held by Doug Nielsen.

Barker most recently served as Hayneedle’s president and prior to that was COO. Nielsen will remain as the company’s chairman.

"We have incredible talent in our organization and Jon is an exceptional leader,” Doug said. “I am truly excited to have him lead our company during our next phase of growth.” Doug will continue to support Hayneedle as chairman of the board.

“As we have since our founding, we remain committed to delivering the best online shopping experience in the industry,” Barker said. “And to do that, we will continue to listen to our customers and respond with products and services that fulfill their vision of home.”

In his prior roles at Hayneedle, Barker led the development of a scalable platform capable of supporting billions of dollars in sales across hundreds of product categories and was instrumental in building Hayneedle’s customer care center and supply chain operation.

The company was founded in 2002 and currently offers 3,000 brands and roughly two million products at its flagship Web site Hayneedle.com which it is capable of delivering to 90% of the U.S. population in two days or less.

Barker explained the company’s philosophy this way: “We are determined to provide our customers an online destination where they can interact with thousands of brands and millions of products. And for those who prefer the human touch, real people at our U.S.-based customer care center are standing by to pick up the phone to support the customer during their entire shopping experience. We want to be there every step of the way, whenever our customers need us.”