2PROFILE
2PROFILE cover
“
at work
startup
personality
NEW YORK STATE OF MIND A chance phone call led Dean & DeLuca president Justin Seamonds to shift furniture out of his career path for a serving of gourmet food. Gavin Nazareth
Over coffee in the recently opened Bangkok avatar of the gourmet and speciality foods retailer from New York, Justin Seamonds tells me how this life-changing move came about. “I was sitting in my office one day and the phone rang; it was a recruiter. Dean & DeLuca had just hired a new CEO who was looking to build a new executive management team, and wanted to know; would I be interested in becoming Chief Financial Officer (CFO)? So I called my wife and told her. Being a foodie she was very interested and excited. But when I told her it was in Wichita, Kansas, she said ‘noooo wayyy!’” he says laughing. It was not his first taste of the food business though. Despite being an English Major in college, it was the business of numbers that intrigued Justin, leading to a short stint as an auditor with BDO Seidman LLP, an accounting and consulting firm. His “first involvement with the food business was in the nineties with the Meridian Beverage Company in Atlanta Georgia, which sold spring water drinks, and fruit-flavored drinks to mass merchandisers.” Next he joined TowerComm Management, a venture-backed cellular tower developer and operator as their CFO. But his retail experience came with one of the leading furniture retailers in the United States. “Haverty Furniture Companies is a chain with 124 stores and US$ 800 million in sales. That is where I got to see the retail business from the bottom up to the top down,” he explains. Though he started as CFO at Dean & DeLuca, a year and a half later he moved into field operations, “to fix parts of our business that we were having trouble with given the economic downturn. Then our CEO decided to move back to Hong Kong, and I took over the international side of the business, and later on the direct business, our internet side, our business-to-business channels and all of our merchandising product flow. So I run the side of the business that’s not retail-related, while the COO (Chief Operating Officer) runs all our domestic retail. And if I do my job right, the international retail portfolio will be higher in
108 2magazine
sales than the US retail group. So it’s a big competition internally.” The gourmet food specialist now has 15 retail locations in the US and 16 outside. Seamonds breaks it down for me. “We have 11 in Japan, one here in Bangkok, and four locations in the Middle East (Kuwait, two in Dubai, and one in Qatar). Kuwait is the biggest retail location Dean & DeLuca has worldwide, covering 1,500 square meters and containing 141 seats. There’s a new one due to open in Korea between April and June, and we are talking to other potential Southeast and Northern Asian partners. We’ve got a few conversations going in Latin America, and
“Dean & DeLuca has its roots in European cuisine, as Giorgio DeLuca was the first person to bring balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes from Europe to the US in the seventies” a couple in Central and Northern America. Almost everywhere other than Africa and Antarctica,” he says with a grin. And while Dean & DeLuca doesn’t have an outlet in Europe, Seamonds says it’s an important market for them. “We are in talks with a couple of partners. But if we open in Western Europe, the sun will never set on the Dean & DeLuca brand,” he says, adding, “there are a lot of different markets there that we would have to understand. Dean & DeLuca has its roots in European cuisine, as Giorgio DeLuca was the first person to bring balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes from Europe to the US in the seventies. So it’s kind of our heritage.”
When scouting for locations, Dean & DeLuca looks for two factors: “a culture where food is a really important thing and a very good local partner.” Both of which he says they found in Thailand. “Southeast Asia has as rich a culture in culinary traditions as anywhere in the world, and our local partner, Pace Development, has all the elements that we would really want in a partner. They had access to retail space and were able to assemble a great operating team that can execute the brand. They also have the ability to financially drive the brand through the production, the new market and to take the time and invest the energy and the money so that people can understand what it is, instead of just putting it out there and seeing what happens. So it’s a good marriage.” It’s passion, he says without hesitation, which makes Dean & DeLuca unique. “A passion for food is the most important thing. I think the offering is also really what makes it distinctive. If you have a cup of coffee in Japan, the US, or in Thailand, the coffee may come from a different source or roaster, but it is going to be a truly exceptional product.” The Dean & DeLuca stamp of approval is a guarantee of the highest quality and Seamonds explains that they apply their own standards to make sure what their partners and domestic businesses get is really the best they can find. “We look at several different things, the most important being taste. And once we get through that area, we look at factors like ingredients, packaging and size. Finally we focus on cost and what it could sell for. “Take our chocolate-covered peanuts. We visit the manufacturer to check where the peanuts come from. How they are roasted. Are there any manufacturing tricks to reduce cost without affecting quality? What type of chocolate and how do you apply it? We try to get very involved to get the best we can find in everything we do,” Seamonds says, adding that being in the business of spreading joy is what drives him everyday. “I think we are really in the business of getting people excited about something they do everyday, which is eat. And it’s more exciting than selling furniture.” 2
109 www.2-mag.com