Nick Swinmurn
Swinmurn is currently the chairman of Zappos. He founded Zappos.com (an online shoe retailer) after being disappointed in his shoe search. (Anon. “Zappos.com, Inc. CEO & Executives” 2011). His responsibilities as the founder and the chairman include;
- Ensuring the company offers the best service in comparison with its competitors
- Providing thought leadership in the governance domain
- Chairing Board Meetings and Annual General Meetings.
Tony Hsieh
Tony Hsieh is the CEO and Director of Zappos. He is a BA in Computer science graduate from Harvard University. He has worked at Oracle, Link Exchange advertising company before starting his own business called venture Frogs. With this firm, Hsieh was able to invest $500, 000 in Zappos where he was appointed as an adviser (Anon. “Zappos.com. Cogmap” 2011). However, in 2001, Hsieh was appointed as the CEO of Zappos alongside Nick Swinmurn (the founder). In 2003, Swinmurn became the Chairman and Hsieh assumed all the responsibilities of the CEO. Hsieh’s responsibilities include:
- Business expansion- He is responsible for deciding which strategy the company should take to ensure maximum returns, Hsieh has currently expanded the company from being a mere shoe retailer but also a clothing and houseware retailer
- Building an organizational culture and ensuring that all customers are satisfied
- Oversee the management of the workforce and ensure that the company hires the right employees
- Conduct Board Meetings and Annual General Meetings
- Derive the annual business plan
- Monitoring and managing processes to ensure that results are delivered on time and are of high quality
Lissa Vag
Vague is currently the vice president- marketing at Zappos. She is a Psychology graduate from Harvard University. She started her career in internet marketing at Link Exchange and later moved to Zappos in 2000 (Anon. “Zappos.com, Inc. CEO & Executives” 2011). His roles at Zappos include:
- Developing the branding strategy and participating in major events
- Facilitating business development by proving inputs to proposal development
- Ensuring that the company’s sales target is met (Anon. “Zappos.com. Cogmap” 2011)
- Participating in conferences and training programs to identify new opportunities for Zappos
Qiana Jones
Jones is the affiliate program coordinator at Zappos. His roles and responsibilities include;
- Supervise the implementation of a quality system
- Providing mentoring and feedback to project managers to facilitate the growth and development of the company
- Influence and motivate the workforce to contribute to the ongoing success of the business
- Designing training materials for core programs of the company that ensure capacity building
- Conduct training programs that improve the skills of the workforce and all stakeholders
Andy Kurlander
Kurlander is the senior marketing manager at Zappos.com. His duties and responsibilities are;
- Determining the marketing strategies to be adopted for the sale of the company’s products
- Making sure that Zappos customers are retained through the provision of excellent customer service
- Managing the marketing budgets
- Ensuring that products are delivered on time
- Managing the marketing mix
Fred Mossler
Mossler joined Zappos in 1999 when it was incepted. He was appointed due to his experience as a regional buyer (Anon. “Zappos.com. Cogmap” 2011). Since then, he has been promoted from one position to the other due to his zeal at work. Currently, he is the Senior Vice president of Merchandising. Mossler’s key responsibilities include supervising;
- The merchandising
- The marketing process
- Creative services
- Zappos channels of operations and
- Employee development programs
He also ensures that the company offers excellent services since it is the driving force. He trains employees on customer care and how to develop a good relationship with the customers.
Darrin Shamo
Shamo is the marketing coordinator at Zappos. He joined Zappos in 2004 and since then, the company has registered a significant growth because of his dedication and zeal to work. He was hired when the marketing department had only three enthusiastic employees with who he has been coordinating. Shamo’s roles are diverse and most of them are concentrated on the marketing functions. This includes handling affiliates and product sample requests. Since Shamo was added to the marketing team, Zappos’ reputation has improved considerably. For instance, in 2008, Zappos celebrated two remarkable achievements, it was able to meet and exceed the $1 billion sales target, and the marketing department expanded to a point that it had to split (Anon. “Zappos.com, Inc. CEO & Executives” 2011).
As the marketing coordinator, Shamo handles the in-house functions for Zappos, for instance;
- Conducting searches
- Comparison of shopping
- Coming up with innovations
Brook Schaaf
Schaaf is currently the affiliate manager at Zappos.com. He has been studying web marketing at Zappos.com among other online companies. After gaining enough experience he decided to start his own business called Schaaf Consulting. His main responsibilities at Zappos include;
- Customer relationship management
- Designing the marketing plan
- Developing the strategic plan for Zippos by identifying key areas that need to be focused on
- Researching and writing reports on the opportunities that the company can utilize
Organization Culture
By critically examining Zappos.com, we can explain its culture in terms of socio-technical and systems theory. Great attention is focused on listening and responding to views from staff on issues related to the performance of the business. Such views are normally brought up during the weekly meetings and members of staff are rewarded accordingly for the suggestions they make. Weekly newsletters and monthly videos are used to update and to keep in touch with members of staff since the company has realized that employees are a valuable asset to the success of the business. This illustrates how the principle of shared values is practiced at Zappos. All members are kept up to date with all the activities in the organization and this boost their morale and motivate them to work harder (Anon. “Zappos.com, Inc. CEO & Executives” 2011). They understand that they are valued and are willing to bring in more ideas and pay much attention to the success of the organization.
Reference List
Anon. (2011). Zappos.com. Web.
Anon. (2011). Zappos.com, Inc. CEO & Executives. Bloomberg Business Week.