CHICAGO _ Crate & Barrel's CEO, who is at the center of a lawsuit from rival Restoration Hardware, is out after less than two years at the retailer.
The company, headquartered in suburban Chicago, confirmed Friday that Doug Diemoz, who was recruited from Restoration Hardware to head Crate & Barrel in 2015, left earlier this week. A spokeswoman declined to say why.
"I can confirm that Mr. Diemoz left the company," spokeswoman Vicky Lang said.
An internal memo obtained by the Chicago Tribune that was sent to staffers by Neela Montgomery, an executive board member at Crate & Barrel's parent company, the Otto Group, said that she would assume "most of Doug's current responsibilities working closely with Steve 'Woody' Woodward, President and Chief Merchant, and Mike Relich, Chief Operating Officer, and the rest of the executive leadership team."
Montgomery added that the company had seen a "strong turnaround" in the past two years and "I firmly believe that the best is yet to come."
Diemoz filled the void at Crate & Barrel after the 2015 resignation of Sascha Bopp, who had been CEO since 2012. Adrian Mitchell, Crate & Barrel's chief operating officer and chief financial officer, served as interim CEO during the search for Bopp's replacement.
A 20-year retail veteran, Diemoz joined Restoration Hardware in March 2014. He was responsible for developing and leading the company's global expansion efforts and emerging businesses. Previously, he was with Mexx, Williams-Sonoma and Gap.
In 2012, Restoration Hardware started developing a concept to include food and beverage services at certain "gallery" locations, according to a lawsuit the company filed earlier this year in California Superior Court against Diemoz and Crate & Barrel. The first location opened in Chicago in October 2015 after the company turned a rundown circa-1914 building into a six-floor space that melded a gallery, retail shop, coffee and pastry shop, wine bar, and a garden courtyard cafe.
Spokeswoman Lang added that Diemoz's departure has nothing to do with the suit, which aims to prevent Crate & Barrel from opening a food and beverage operation in any of its stores for a year.
The lawsuit also alleges that Crate & Barrel sought to hire Diemoz for his know-how to launch a similar program for the company. The company also set its sights on another top Restoration Hardware executive, Kimberly Ahlheim, to gain access to information developed after Diemoz left, the suit alleges
Crate & Barrel "effectively sought to steal a page from the successful RH playbook," using inside information such as how to sell coffee and wine in the same store in which customers buy stemware and settees, the suit alleges. Restoration Hardware has asked the court to order Diemoz and Ahlheim to erase all proprietary information they have and prevent Ahlheim from serving in a position where her proprietary information would be valuable for a year. The lawsuit is still pending.
Crate & Barrel founders Gordon Segal and his wife, Carole, launched the store in Chicago neighborhood in 1962. Now its family of brands, including CB2 and children furniture store The Land of Nod, are owned by Hamburg, Germany-based Otto Group.
