Former Neiman Marcus CEO Karen Katz has joined the board of The RealReal, a company that says it is the world’s largest online marketplace for reselling luxury goods.
Katz, who is an expert in luxury retailing after a long career at Dallas-based Neiman Marcus, has also had an up-close view of the resale business.
Neiman Marcus and The RealReal had a short partnership in 2015, and then in 2019, Nieman Marcus made an investment in competitor Fashionphile when Katz was still on the Neiman Marcus board. She left the board in January 2020.
San Francisco-based The RealReal went public in June 2019 with an initial public offering price of $20 a share. The stock closed Thursday at $27.75, giving it a market value of $2.46 billion.
The RealReal CEO Julie Wainwright, who founded the company in 2011, has said that diversity is one of her chief goals.
With the addition of Katz and another new board member also named Friday — Emma Grede, co-founder and CEO of Good American, a jeans and fashion apparel brand in extended sizes — The RealReal board of 11 directors will be 60% women.
“Among the 3,000 largest U.S. publicly traded companies, one in 10 boards still have no women,” Wainwright said in a statement. “We have been intentional in our efforts to expand diversity within our board, and we believe this further strengthens our ability to capitalize on the significant opportunity ahead of us.”
She said Katz and Grede were recruited for the depth of their retail and fashion industry experience and their insight into shifting consumer behaviors and the evolving retail landscape.
Katz, a Dallas native who started her career with Neiman Marcus in 1985 and was CEO for almost eight years, is also on the boards of Under Armour, Casper and Humana, and chairs StreetTrend.
The RealReal, which will report fourth-quarter results next week, had revenue of $213.7 million through September, down almost 5% largely due to the pandemic. While it operates online, The RealReal has stores and consignment offices where customers can bring in their goods in several cities, including one at the Crescent in Dallas.
Twitter: @MariaHalkias
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