BIO: Jenny Niemann
Jenny is a proven business leader. She has a track record of
creating business results and value by driving growth and
reinvention from within a mature company.
Jenny’s most recent role was as the CEO of Red Thread, an
office environments dealership, operating throughout New
England, which delivers furniture, interior construction and
audio visual technologies to companies. She led the acquisition
and integration work to form this company in 2011 which now is
one of Steelcase’s largest dealers in revenue and includes
approximately 500 employees.
Under Jenny’s leadership, organic revenue has grown 30% and profits have tripled. Red Thread is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Steelcase Inc., the global leader in the furniture industry, providing products, services and
insights into the ways people work. Steelcase is $3 billion in revenues and traded under SCS on the NYSE.
Jenny started her career with Accenture (Andersen Consulting) in information systems consulting. She then
spent nearly 20 years with Steelcase before moving to Red Thread. Her work experience has been focused
in sales, product innovation and process improvements.
Career highlights include: Graduating from the PACE sales career entry program at Steelcase; Leading cross
functional teams to develop a number of Steelcase’s top selling product lines including “Answer”; Starting and
directing Steelcase’s B2B and B2C ecommerce efforts; Building and managing Global Shared Service Centers
in Malaysia and Mexico; Transforming Steelcase’s independent dealer distribution strategies to better support
stakeholders.
Jenny graduated with honors from the University of Michigan with a MBA in 1996. In 1990, she graduated
Cum Laude from Bowdoin College, in Maine with a double major in Mathematics and Economics. She is a
lifelong learner and continued growing through courses in Design Thinking and LEAN manufacturing. She also
completed executive education at Kellogg at Northwestern University on governance for family enterprises.
Raised in Grand Rapids Michigan, Jenny is now married with two children and currently living in the Boston,
MA area. Jenny and her family will be relocating to the Chicago area.
While in New England, Jenny served on the board of a privately owned office furniture dealer distributor on the
west coast. As a member of the Board of Trustees for Saint Joseph’s University in Hartford, CT, Jenny served
on the audit & risk committee and academic affairs committee. Jenny was also on the board for the New
England Chapter of Young Presidents Organization (YPO).
She was a member of the University of Michigan Capital Campaign committee for New England. Jenny has
been active for many years with the United Way; currently a Tocqueville Society member and was a committee
member for the 2013 Real Estate and Building Industry Breakfast for Massachusetts Bay/Merrimack Valley
and chairman of the 2011 Campaign for Steelcase.
Jenny is majority owner and has management control of
Forward Space, LLC.
She plans to be employed and lead the dealership.
[email protected]
616-291-8782