Author Kim Yost

Kim Yost, CEO of Art Van Furniture, joined Art Van Furniture in October, 2009. During his short time at Art Van Furniture, the Art Van Leadership Team implemented The Art Book: Business Plan, The Art of Execution and game books for sales events, opened several new full-line Art Van Stores and Art Van PureSleep stores, set all-time records for mattress sales, single-day store sales and record sales for the day after Christmas, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day and Fourth of July, and achieved double digit increases in both written and delivered sales for the year.

Prior to Art Van Furniture, Mr. Yost spent 13 years at The Brick, Canada’s largest furniture, mattress, appliance and electronics retailer. He was the driving force behind the development of 30 specialty mattress stores and developed a program called Home Show Canada, an Asian direct buying service called First Ocean and produced “Brick Tube” to communicate with the employees. Under his leadership as CEO, sales at The Brick soared from $900 million to $1.7 billion in just six years.

Mr. Yost joined the Brick Group in February 1997 and held various positions since then including senior vice president of marketing and senior vice president of merchandising. He was appointed president of The Brick Warehouse Corporation in March 2000 and subsequently became its chief executive officer in March 2004. As CEO he took the company public, raising over 600 million dollars in investments. When Mr. Yost started at The Brick there were approximately 46 stores, and within his 13 years he increased that to 260 stores. Mr. Yost spent over 30 years in the retail industry in Canada, with experience in sales, marketing, operations and executive management with a number of organizations, including Wosk’s, Footlocker, Champs Sports and Woodwards.

x

Contact