Rent the Runway adds former Amazon logistics execs to leadership, board

Rent the Runway is bringing in fresh but seasoned talent to help it sort out its supply chain challenges and keep up with customer demand.

The apparel rental giant, which last fall failed to meet deliveries for customers and temporarily stopped taking new orders due to supply chain challenges, has appointed Brian Donato as chief supply chain officer, effective March 16, 2020. 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. (Rent the Runway’s head of supply chain, Marv Cunningham, departed the company at the end of September in the wake of the supply chain problems.)

Donato comes to Rent the Runway from New York-based startup Bowery Farming, where he served as executive VP, operations and during which time the indoor vertical farm company expanded distribution from five stores to more than 100 grocery outlets in the Northeast. Prior to joining Bowery in 2018, Brian spent seven years at Amazon, where he held several senior operational roles, his most recent being director of operations, Amazon Home Services. 

“As the pioneer of rental and leader in reverse logistics, operational transformation to enhance our customer experience is one of our highest priorities,” said Rent the Runway co-founder and CEO Jennifer 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.”

In addition, Rent the Runway named Mike Indresano as senior transportation executive. Most recently, he served as the senior VP for Walmart eCommerce transportation, where he led the implementation of next-day delivery service for online orders. 

Prior to Walmart, Indresano held roles as VP of Amazon Transportation Services and VP of operations for FedEx SmartPost. 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, stated Rent the Runway. 

The company also said that Mike Roth, former VP of Amazon’s global customer fulfillment operations & transportation, joined its board in January. 

Roth was a key leader at Amazon from July 1999 until June 2019, and is credited as one of the senior leaders and architects of Amazon's transportation and operational prowess over the past 20 years.  

“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,” said Hyman. “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.”