Office furniture company Haworth has more than 7,500 employees and 650 dealers worldwide. It does business in more than 120 countries.ranco Bianchi had never gone so fast in his life. Strapped into the passenger seat of a luxury Ferrari sportscar, the Bologna-born executive marveled as the professional driver deftly maneuvered the vehicle around curves at 200 miles per hour.
Industry-wide, orders were down roughly 30% during the majority of 2020, says Steven Ramsey, a senior equity analyst at Thompson Research Group. But Bianchi says Haworth sales were down just 15%, and revenue reached nearly $1.9 billion. The office furniture for which Haworth is renowned still makes up a majority of sales.
The business, however, didn’t see widespread success until 1976 when, fresh from a stint in the Army, Haworth’s son, Richard, took over the company with an idea that would rock the office furniture industry. Improving on the cubicle concept introduced a few years earlier by competitor Herman Miller, he invented a version with electrical wiring inside the panels.
Bianchi joined the company in 1992. After his boutique mergers and acquisitions company facilitated the sale of an Italian furniture company to Haworth, he was asked to stay on and lead Haworth’s European expansion. A decade later, he was appointed vice president of finances and moved to Michigan, and in 2005, he became the second non-family member to lead the company as CEO.
Haworth is branding"Pergola" as a return-to-the-office solution, offering its customers a flexible workspace.Haworth has also been promoting a variety of plastic and glass separation screens, which can enclose desks and workstations and are made from easily disinfected materials, as well as freestanding “BuzziSpace” screens that can display directions to direct office traffic patterns and aid in social distancing.