Ira Fishman
Anatomic Global, a leading U.S. manufacturer of memory foam mattresses, said that Ira Fishman, who in a 23-year career went from sales associate to vice president of merchandising for Sleepy’s, has joined the company as executive vice president of sales, a new position for the company. Fishman’s primary responsibilities will be to develop and launch new retail programs, work with new retail partners and provide sales support to Anatomic Global retailers. Fishman will be based in New York.
“Ira played a critical role in the building of the nation’s largest sleep products retailer because he has a keen sense of product merchandising and possibly more importantly, tremendous insight into what motivates the customer to buy. We are excited that he will be working with our dealers as a resource to help them generate more traffic and sales,” said Anatomic Global CEO David Farley.
Fishman was recruited to the company by President Jeff Scorziell, himself a former retailer who had admired his work for many years.
“Bringing on board someone of Ira’s stature affirms Anatomic Global’s commitment to our retailer partners,” he said. “We believe that having strong retailer experience to back up our merchandizing and training efforts will help support our retailers to maximize profitability with our products.”
Fishman began his career in the sleep products industry as a sales associate at Sleepy’s in 1987 when it had just 35 locations. He was quickly promoted to run the chain’s top-producing store for several years before another promotion to vice president of sales and them ultimately to the role of vice president of merchandising and lead buyer for the chain, which had grown to more than 700 stores and topped $700 million in sales.
“Anatomic Global has developed a unique product merchandising strategy and story to tell consumers that I believe will resonate with retailer sales associates in our industry. There is a flood of non differentiable visco in the market right now, but Anatomic Global has something unique; a real opportunity for the right retailers who know how to deploy and sell it on the floor,” said Fishman.
Fishman will be focusing on sales force training as well as the development of new products and point-of-purchase materials to help retailers and their retail sales associates move product.
The new appointment comes in the wake of Anatomic Global’s unfurling of its Sleep by Design collection, featuring its patent-pending Comfort Support Architecture which employs progressive layering of visco foam layers to create the ultimate memory foam mattress that accommodates a range of customer preferences and gives customers a choice over the one-size-fits-all memory foam products being offered today.
The company is also experiencing record growth and expansion. After adding 140,000 square feet of production and distribution space to its Southern California facility earlier this year, the company increased its workforce 30 percent as well.
Anatomic Global offers a broad range of proprietary plant-based EcoMemoryFoam™ and conventional foam products that appeal to a diverse consumer base, including mattresses, toppers and pillows. Its earth-friendly products use less energy to process and are vacuum-compressed and rolled for easy, fuel-efficient delivery.
Founded in 1989, Anatomic Global is a fully integrated, EDI capable globally positioned distribution, logistics and fulfillment-company that today incorporates the brand development and marketing insight of bedding industry leaders to meet the needs of its customers. Deeply rooted in the medical mattress industry, in 2008 the company applied its medical manufacturing expertise and launched the Ecomfort Mattress brand featuring its signature, exclusive EcoMemoryFoam™ extreme open-cell plant-based memory foam. For more information, visit www.ecomfortmattress.com.