Anyone who sees Haworth’s brand portfolio as a polished escape from the office has misunderstood Franco Bianchi. He does not buy Italian design icons because he has grown bored with partitions and task chairs. He wants Cassina, Cappellini, Poltrona Frau, JANUS et Cie and the latest addition, Heller, to make the office business stronger. At first, that sounds like: We buy sofas to sell more desks. But that is pretty much the plan.
In a podcast by the US industry publication Business of Home, the Haworth CEO explains this logic in greater detail than in the accompanying article. The current scale of the business: Haworth generated global sales of $2.7 billion in 2025, eight percent more than the previous year and more than ever before. According to the company, the North American office furniture business was particularly strong. Around 8,000 employees, 400 dealers and more than 150 countries. Not exactly a small general store.
Bianchi mentions the most interesting figure almost in passing. Since the acquisition of the Poltrona Frau Group in 2014, Haworth Lifestyle has grown to roughly three times its former size, he says. The office business has probably doubled over the same period. Precise segment figures? There are none. Haworth is privately owned, and private in this case means: We will tell you enough, but please do not expect everything.
Bianchi is contradicting the popular story that large office furniture companies bought lifestyle brands mainly because they had stopped trusting the office. Herman Miller acquired Design Within Reach, Knoll bought Holly Hunt and Haworth took over the Poltrona Frau Group. At the time, it looked a little like an organised evacuation from the open-plan office.
Bianchi says the opposite. “We did not take this step to run away from the office world, but to become better in the office,” is his message. Haworth needed outside designers, different product typologies and more knowledge of hospitality, informal areas and so-called amenities. Lifestyle was not a lifeboat. Lifestyle was remedial education for the office.
That fits the development of the contract business. The workplace, hotel lobby, club, restaurant and living room have long been drawing from the same furniture vocabulary. A lounge chair here, a high table there, a little rug, a little acoustics, and the supposedly completely new world of work is finished. Bianchi puts it more elegantly: The old boundaries between types of space have disappeared.
Smaller office footprints do not appear to frighten him either. Quite the opposite. “If I need less space, I need a smarter, better-designed and more considered office,” he says in essence. Fewer square feet therefore do not automatically mean less business for Haworth. Above all, they mean there are even fewer excuses for poor space planning.
Heller: The Man Was Part of the Package
What Bianchi says about the Heller acquisition is particularly revealing. Officially, the deal concerned an American design brand known for indoor and outdoor furniture. Unofficially, it was at least as much about John Edelman, the former head of Design Within Reach and Heller’s previous CEO.
Bianchi describes Heller as a strong brand with a “small but powerful team”. Edelman is not only expected to provide creative guidance for Heller, but also to accelerate Haworth’s lifestyle brands in the American market. “We do not simply buy things,” Bianchi says. Then comes the best sentence of the conversation: “The things without the people are really not worth very much.”
That sentence should be framed and hung in a few M&A departments.
According to Bianchi, the management team is examined during an acquisition almost as closely as the company itself. Haworth wants to know in advance which people will remain, what prospects they will have and whether both sides are following the same plan. Otherwise, the buyer may end up owning a beautiful brand but no longer have anyone who knows what to do with it.
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Anyone who sees Haworth’s brand portfolio as a polished escape from the office has misunderstood Franco Bianchi. He does not buy Italian design icons because he has grown bored with partitions and task chairs. He wants Cassina, Cappellini, Poltrona Frau, JANUS et Cie and the latest addition, Heller, to make the office business stronger. At first, that sounds like: We buy sofas to sell more desks. But that is pretty much the plan.
In a podcast by the US industry publication Business of Home, the Haworth CEO explains this logic in greater detail than in the accompanying article. The current scale of the business: Haworth generated global sales of $2.7 billion in 2025, eight percent more than the previous year and more than ever before. According to the company, the North American office furniture business was particularly strong. Around 8,000 employees, 400 dealers and more than 150 countries. Not exactly a small general store.
Bianchi mentions the most interesting figure almost in passing. Since the acquisition of the Poltrona Frau Group in 2014, Haworth Lifestyle has grown to roughly three times its former size, he says. The office business has probably doubled over the same period. Precise segment figures? There are none. Haworth is privately owned, and private in this case means: We will tell you enough, but please do not expect everything.
Bianchi is contradicting the popular story that large office furniture companies bought lifestyle brands mainly because they had stopped trusting the office. Herman Miller acquired Design Within Reach, Knoll bought Holly Hunt and Haworth took over the Poltrona Frau Group. At the time, it looked a little like an organised evacuation from the open-plan office.
Bianchi says the opposite. “We did not take this step to run away from the office world, but to become better in the office,” is his message. Haworth needed outside designers, different product typologies and more knowledge of hospitality, informal areas and so-called amenities. Lifestyle was not a lifeboat. Lifestyle was remedial education for the office.
That fits the development of the contract business. The workplace, hotel lobby, club, restaurant and living room have long been drawing from the same furniture vocabulary. A lounge chair here, a high table there, a little rug, a little acoustics, and the supposedly completely new world of work is finished. Bianchi puts it more elegantly: The old boundaries between types of space have disappeared.
Smaller office footprints do not appear to frighten him either. Quite the opposite. “If I need less space, I need a smarter, better-designed and more considered office,” he says in essence. Fewer square feet therefore do not automatically mean less business for Haworth. Above all, they mean there are even fewer excuses for poor space planning.
Heller: The Man Was Part of the Package
What Bianchi says about the Heller acquisition is particularly revealing. Officially, the deal concerned an American design brand known for indoor and outdoor furniture. Unofficially, it was at least as much about John Edelman, the former head of Design Within Reach and Heller’s previous CEO.
Bianchi describes Heller as a strong brand with a “small but powerful team”. Edelman is not only expected to provide creative guidance for Heller, but also to accelerate Haworth’s lifestyle brands in the American market. “We do not simply buy things,” Bianchi says. Then comes the best sentence of the conversation: “The things without the people are really not worth very much.”
That sentence should be framed and hung in a few M&A departments.
According to Bianchi, the management team is examined during an acquisition almost as closely as the company itself. Haworth wants to know in advance which people will remain, what prospects they will have and whether both sides are following the same plan. Otherwise, the buyer may end up owning a beautiful brand but no longer have anyone who knows what to do with it.