Organic Mattresses, Inc. Appoints Ling New CEO

Furniture World News Desk on 7/22/2014

Organic Mattresses, Inc. (OMI), the  manufacturer of organic mattresses under the Organicpedic brand, has named industry veteran Kurt Ling its new chief executive officer. Ling is credited with introducing several new and dramatic changes to the industry during his time at Simmons and as the founder of PureLatexBLISS.

“For many years we have watched Kurt introduce new innovation to the category and seen him build an exciting new brand. We have always had a credible, well-respected product. What we needed was a strong marketer like Kurt to help us grow the business to the next level,” said OMI Founder Walt Bader, who will become chairman. “Kurt will extend our brand into an even greater spectrum in the ‘all natural’ and ‘organic’ mattress space. We are committed to providing the consumer the very finest, most natural and organic product that can be crafted at various price points.”

According to Ling, OMI is a unique brand with unlimited opportunity.

“I am genuinely excited to join the OMI team and build the OrganicPedic™ brand. I believe the growth of natural and organic products across many categories over the last decade has been phenomenal. Companies like Whole Foods and Aveda Cosmetics have changed their industries for the good of consumers and retailers alike,” he said.

“While our industry has historically positioned organic mattresses narrowly and only to the very chemically sensitive, I see a much greater opportunity if we can partner with retailers and position our products to a much more mainstream market of consumers who already buy organic in other categories such as food, cosmetics and other home furnishings like flooring and paint. It is the ultimate opportunity for us as a company and retailers in the industry,” Ling said.

“Walt has created an outstanding foundation by setting the purity bar in organic mattresses very high. I am excited to leverage that platform moving forward. Many organic mattress manufacturers have asked the consumer to make tradeoffs when they purchase high-end organic mattresses in terms of look and feel. I believe that for Organic mattresses to become the only genuine luxury mattress as they are in many other parts of the world, they have to look like the epitome of luxury and feel like the pinnacle of luxury.”

In 2009, Ling co-founded Pure LatexBLISS. In only a few years, the company had reintroduced all-latex beds back into the United States and expanded into six other countries. He resigned his post in March of 2014.

Prior to this position, Ling spent seven years as vice president of Beautyrest and vice president of innovation at Simmons, where he lead the company and subsequently, the industry’s change to non-flip mattress designs. He also was president of Customer Kinetics, an industry consulting agency where he spent four years advising major mattress brands and retailers on innovative new product designs, marketing strategies and selling processes. Before entering the mattress industry, Ling spent 13 years at Maytag Appliances where he worked in sales management and in marketing as brand manager for five years.

Ling was nominated to Fast Company’s Fast 50 List of Dreamers and Doers, was featured in Fortune Magazine and was recognized by University of Virginia’s Darden Business School as a Growth Leader.
America’s number one selling organic mattress and sleep product brand, OMI’s collection is produced in the nation’s only large-scale, smoke, chemical and fragrance-free factory. All OMI products are crafted by expert artisans using only purest third-party certified organic cotton, wool and rubber latex.

About OMI: OMI is a full-circle environmental company dedicated to supporting America’s organic and sustainable farmers. OMI’s handmade custom organic mattresses are manufactured in Northern California in the first and only large-scale Eco-Factory™ to manufacture certified organic products. OMI mattresses qualify under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s LEEDs indoor air-quality program. In 2013, OMI became the first mattress manufacturer to obtain both the Global Organic Standard Textile (GOTS) and Global Organic Latex Standard (GOLS). For more information, go to www.omimattress.com or call 800-951-9196 during Pacific Coast business hours.