Kevin Cleary has been named CEO of Jewelry Television (JTV), taking over from Tim Matthews, who had headed the company since 2008.
Cleary has served since October as co-CEO alongside Matthews, who will remain on the JTV board.
Cleary is the founder and managing partner of Fort Dearborn Partners, a management consultancy with a focus on turnarounds and consumer goods.
He tells JCK that with cable viewership down, he hopes to expand JTV’s distribution channels. It recently began selling on the Amazon Marketplace and will soon be added to the Macy’s platform, using the Judith Ripka brand as its way in.
“Our strategy is to get on other people’s marketplaces,” he says. “We continue to expand into our other channels of distribution. Our plan is to build a big business on Amazon, and then get on Walmart and Target and build big businesses there.”
Cleary notes that despite “TV” being in its name, half of the company’s sales currently come from e-commerce, and its online “Jewel School” has become a hit. However, he is deemphasizing Jedora, the JTV-backed e-tail site meant to serve as a brand storefront.
“Jedora is great,” he says. “But it just takes a great deal of capital to build [a site] and market it.”
Down the road, Cleary wants JTV to penetrate the Hispanic market and to broaden its product offerings.
“We are always looking for new ideas and new products and new vendors,” he says. “That’s what’s helped us on our shows—we are always offering something new.”
While JTV had layoffs last year, Cleary says sales and gross margins have stabilized over the past three months, and he hopes to build on the company’s strengths.
“I’ve been in over 100 distribution companies,” he says. “The distribution capabilities in how we ship and deliver here is in the top 1% I’ve ever seen. So our distribution is great, all the teams are really good. We have the infrastructure to grow the business.”
(Photo courtesy of JTV)
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