Of course, Rachel Stewart feels the pressure of being the fourth-generation leader of the family owned Gardner White furniture chain. But it’s not just her immediate family – Stewart succeeded her parents, Barbara and Steven Tronstein, April 1 – to whom she feels responsible. It’s also the 1,000 or so team members spread out over Gardner White’s 13 Michigan locations who she also declares as family.
“We’re a family company in every sense in that we have multiple members of families working here,” said Stewart who, until her promotion, had been the furniture giant’s president since 2017. “When you just know everyone’s family … when you really know the people and know the members of the team, for me, that’s where the pressure is.
“Even though they’re not biologically family, they’re family and you feel a pressure to keep it going for them,” she added.
She grew up in Huntington Woods and Bloomfield, went to Andover High School and then on to the University of Michigan. She moved to New York for five years, worked on the Clinton Foundation’s clean energy portfolio, then went to the Department of Energy, where she worked on a program working for Nobel-Prize winning physicist Dr. Steven Chu to drive down the installed price of solar energy to be competitive with other forms of electricity.
Stewart, who assumed her new duties April 1, shared her thoughts about the new job, her career and other issues:
Corp! Magazine: Talk a little more about the family atmosphere at Gardner White. It’s not just you and your parents, right?
Rachel Stewart: When you really know the people and know the members of the team, you want them to make a great living here. For me, that’s where the pressure is more so. Even though they’re not biologically family, they’re family and you feel a pressure to keep it going for them. I have a work sister, right? I’ve known her for decades. She’s been here for 23 years. I know all her kids. I mean that’s the real stuff.
That’s the really cool thing about a family business, to be honest with you. It’s a lot better than being stuck in a big corporation. It’s very personal. Anyone who thinks the relationship side isn’t real, I don’t know. It wouldn’t do well here.
Corp!: Did you grow up in the business? I know you were gone from it for a while.
Stewart: I grew up in the sense of I’m unique in that it’s not like one parent that worked here, it’s two. So, every conversation at the dinner table somehow came back to this. I’ll never forget doing a (job) interview. It was right out of grad school. I don’t think I’d ever had a real job (yet). And I’m talking to someone, they said for someone who has zero experience, you seem to know a lot about marketing. Well, welcome to our family. You learned at the dinner table from the best.
Some people can leave it at work, not my parents. So, you got exposed to a lot. So, I grew up in it in that sense and that you had two parents all in it all the time and these are two very intense people.
But … they applied the opposite of pressure to join it. They encouraged us to go do and be our own people and have our own careers first, which I think is a lot of value. I think it’s really important to do that if you’re going to be in a family business.
Corp!: Why?
Stewart: I think first you’ve got to bring some value. You can’t just walk in. You’re going to be treated differently. I mean everyone knows what your last name is, and you’ve got to earn that, I think. And I also just think there’s so much about the workforce and about just the learning process where it’s a different process if it’s from your parents or from the outside.
And I was lucky. I had so many awesome mentors and I think my parents being among them, but it’s a whole different relationship. So, I was really lucky in that sense. There’s one colleague that I worked with with the Department of Energy, and I hear him in my head every four minutes. He was an academic and that’s what they do. They mentor well. He did a good job constantly there. So, I think it’s important to have those other influences if you’re going to do this.
Corp!: You mentioned your parents are intense people. How are they intense and are you like them?
Stewart: It’s funny, I was just in a meeting where someone asked me the same question, they’d asked both my parents and my answer was a combined version of both. And I think that’s kind of true. I’ve got a little bit of each, but the one thing, they are intense. I mean they work, they’re all in all the time. Don’t turn off. I don’t think there’s been a day where my dad’s not up still going to a Gardner White store. As long as he’s in town, they’re always thinking about it, always doing it. I think in any of these jobs you’ve got to be all in and I think they’re all in all the time.
Corp!: Are you like that?
Stewart: Yeah, I’m pretty intense.
Corp!: How does the title change change your role?
Stewart: I don’t think the title change changes my role as much as having really capable … experienced leaders here changes my role and we’ve been adding to the team. I think (new president Brad Bailey) is the final cherry, but it changes it in that there’s no point in bringing on incredibly capable people if they don’t have the room to do their thing.
So, I think that’s how I think the biggest and in a family business, I think that’s the biggest change. You’re so used to having your finger on everything and there’s still ways to do that. But I think, again, the whole point is to let experienced people with a lot of ideas go and do their thing.
Corp!: Do you now have to take more of a big picture role?
Stewart: Yeah, and I think that’s part of what I like. I think what I’m good at is the strategy side, which is part of how we’ve organized the team. So, I like it.
Corp!: You spent 10 years in the energy sector. What got you into that?
Stewart: I mean, what I like, and it’s the same thing I like here, was constant change and evolution and it was just interesting. That’s what I like about the strategy side of retail. The one thing that you would know about retail and in 10 years it’s going to look different and it’s fun to sort of think, not just think about it, but get a move on. I want to try things, fail at some, get up and keep moving. And that to me is really interesting. And I mean the energy was the same way. It was just changing at such a rapid pace and where you manufacture and how you manufacture is changing at such a pace that it’s interesting. And now it has been fun to be involved in some things at the state level. I think that background translates pretty well as we think about how to keep growing the Michigan economy so reliant on manufacturing and that’s such a strength that we need to leverage that more.
Corp!: What attracted you back to Gardner White?
Stewart: I really wanted to learn the business side of how to actually be an operator. I knew the theory, I knew the economics, but I think the day-to-day operations is a whole different education and not necessarily, you can get a little bit in school, but it’s much more of a boots-on-the-ground thing. And I thought it was a good opportunity to come to Detroit and learn that. And then it stuck. Then I liked that. I liked the furniture industry in a lot of ways, including, it’s just very relational and you can leverage that. So, I liked what I was doing and kept going.
Corp!: Is the team going to notice any difference? Are there big changes coming?
Stewart: We’re in an evolution is what I would say and we’re going to keep on that path. I mean I think we’ve become a lot more analytical and data-driven, not going anywhere, I think.
Corp!: How does that help you?
Stewart: I’m a big tested-measure fan and I think I stand by my claim. So, we’re doing a lot more of that and we’ll continue to do so. And even our ability to measure and get data has changed and we’ll keep changing. And I think everyone we’ve brought on to the team very much adheres to that and is a fan. We’ve brought on some really data-driven people. I think we are going to keep evolving. The one thing that won’t change is we’ve always been really pretty nimble and flat. And I think that’s really important. Covid taught us it was important.
Corp!: Gardner White is continuing to expand your footprint — 13 locations around here, Ann Arbor, Saginaw, more than a thousand people on your team. How have you managed that in this economy?
Stewart: You see the opportunities ahead and take ‘em. I think there’s always in the economy when it’s good and when it’s bad, there’s opportunity and they look different depending. But I think you’ve got to keep growing aggressively.
Corp!: The post-Covid economy didn’t hinder you in that?
Stewart: Covid was hard … but Covid was a lesson in being agile, which thankfully we were. And among the many things that required great agility was the supply chain. It required agility and really working it. And thankfully that’s something everyone on this team is really good at. And then after Covid and when everyone was at home, furniture was really popular. Our industry was growing, so it required tons of change for all those same reasons. The supply chain was a mess, but the sector was growing. But that to me is the fun part.
Corp!: You’re one of the few female leaders in your industry. Why do you think that is?
Stewart: I think it’s a huge benefit in our industry because the consumers are female. I think it just takes time and I think it takes a concerted effort to cultivate diverse leaders. Any way you measure it. I don’t think you snap your fingers and, boom, you have trained candidates who are sort of on that path.
I would say we’re unique and that both of my parents have been leaders of this company. So, we already had a female leader, so that was unique. But I also think there’s some things I always bump up against. I’m a working mother. That is not easy. We have a lot of working mothers here. So, I think it takes having a real team around you who sort of understands that to create more female leaders.
Corp!: You personally and the company collectively have a huge commitment to community, serving on the boards of several organ. You’re on the DEC, you’re on the parade company. Gardner White’s a signature sponsor of the Thanksgiving parade. Why is that kind of community service important and community presence important to you and to the company?
Stewart: It’s not just something you say. I think there’s a real difference when you buy from a local company versus something like private equity backed. I think you invest in the communities you’re in because you have to be. Because it’s not like we operate in 20 states. We are all in on Michigan. So, I think when that is your perspective, you participate in the community and it can mean different things at different times. I mean during Covid it was among the 5,000 things we learned is you leaned in the ways you needed to. So, at some point there was rotting food that couldn’t get to food banks. We have this fleet that’s available, so we’re running food throughout the state. Or at some point the Metropolitan Diaper Bank needed a place to store diapers. So, I now know what a million diapers look like we put in our warehouse. There’s just like, I think when you’re here and engaged and live down the street from people who need things, you raise your hand. And I think that’s just the difference.
Corp!: I know it was four years ago now, but what did the pandemic teach you?
Stewart: I think the importance of being agile and I think not just as a company but the individuals within the team. Some people really shined because they could just execute. And I think, to me, that’s the most important lesson. The supply chain change. Well, we still need furniture. Let’s think about this. And I think just some people really played beautifully there. And as a company, I think we did.
Corp!: What is the biggest lesson that you learned from your parents that you’ll be able to apply now that you’re taking over for them?
Stewart: Oh, there’s so much. I think the best thing my dad that he said on repeat was not to take yourself too seriously. I think that’s really important. And I think from my mom, it’s probably to grind it out and really to, she will aggressively pursue every ounce of market share till her dying day.
