by Newly named CEO Jason Phillips shares his vision for the future, including the development of new and expanding product categories
HIGH POINT — When Jason Phillips became chief executive officer of furniture and accent specialist Phillips Collection in December, it was one of the biggest industry succession stories of the past year.
Some 42 years after founding the company, longtime top executive Mark Phillips took a step back to take a role that focuses on product sourcing to let his son run day-to-day management, while also steering the company toward the future.
Earlier this year, the two sat down with Home News Now to discuss what’s changed in their executive roles and what it means for them, the company and its customers moving forward.
Mark Phillips said that through the transition, he wanted to focus on what he loves — travel and working with new and existing sources that produce the company’s designs — including a modern, organic product mix of consoles, occasional tables, dining tables, buffets and sideboards and desks made with materials ranging from teak and chamcha wood to stone, metal and glass, sometimes incorporating multiple elements into the same piece. Wall art, sculptures and lighting also are part of the mix as are outdoor furniture and accents.
He said his travel schedule will be more focused, for example, visiting several cities during a single trip as opposed to something like nine cities in 18 days previously.
“It will be more time overseas, but this time I will stop and smell the roses and spend more time taking in what I see,” he said of his time out in the field. “I always want to discover new capabilities, and I don’t want to be here at 7:30 in the morning.”
“I just wanted to give up the shit that I hate to do,” he added bluntly. “I am very hopeful that I will work less hours and spend more time doing what I want to do. I want the Indiana Jones mode to kick in instead of the operational mode.”
This will leave the day-to-day management in the U.S. that’s run out if its High Point headquarters to Jason, who also will remain involved in marketing and product design, using his formal education in industrial design as he has over the past 20 years.
It’s a role he’s comfortable assuming after such a long history with the company himself, having previously served as vice president, a role he has held since April 2005, after graduating with a degree in industrial design from the University of Michigan.
“I began in design and marketing, focusing on crafting our brand identity and connecting with customers across diverse industries,” he said in his LinkedIn profile. “As the company scaled exponentially, my role evolved into overseeing operations and driving sales. I worked to enhance the customer experience by developing tools, training programs and innovative strategies that empowered our sales teams worldwide.
“Collaborating closely with my father, Mark Phillips, the founder of our company, I contributed to building on his vision of artistry and craftsmanship,” his profile continued. “Together, we navigated the challenges of scaling a design-focused business, from sourcing items in artisan communities around the world to managing our showrooms in High Point and Las Vegas. … This period of my career was foundational, preparing me for my next chapter as CEO. It reinforced my passion for design, my commitment to operational excellence and my dedication to positioning Phillips Collection as a leader in the furniture and design industry.”
During an interview with Home News Now in late February, he noted that the first few months in the new position have been a period of discovery, learning what’s involved in the job, including the more in-depth interactions with staff that come to him with questions, ideas, comments, concerns and victories, which he described as taking up a good part of his day.
“So there is the day-to-day functions of the CEO, and then there also is what I thought would happen afterwards — the growing of the business — which I realized were the sleepless nights Dad would have. It is really the focus on growing of the business that almost happens after hours.”
But he said he has a good team in place to handle their respective areas of the business, ranging from product development and finance to sales, a role handled by his sister Jessica Phillips, who has been with the company for 12 years in positions including vice president of sales and hospitality, showroom manager and her current position of vice president of business development.
Thus, part of the role is also recognizing these and other talents within the organization for what they do best.
“I ran sales and marketing previously, and sales has been inherited by my sister, Jessica, who has always been involved in that, but now she is running the sales team, so that has alleviated me from dealing with 50-plus independent sale reps and checking in with them,” he said, noting that marketing remains part of his responsibility as does design, while the actual sourcing and working directly with the factories is in the hands of his father.
“I love design, and it is not that I don’t love the discovery,” he added, noting that he works with a team of designers at Phillips that develops creations that are then paired with the capabilities of the source factories discovered by Mark Phillips. “It is just that Mark is so good at it. He is like the Michael Jordan of discovery, which means putting in the extra hours and showing up before practice.”
Jason Phillips also shared a vision of what’s in store for customers moving forward as the company continues to expand and further develop its product line in similar ways that rug companies such as Loloi and Surya are expanding their own mix to include furniture.
In the near future, for example, Phillips Collection is looking to further expand its lighting and outdoor furniture mix beyond the core products it is selling in each category.
It also plans to launch bookcase units as part of its home office line, which currently includes a dozen or so desks that feature its signature mixing of materials such as solid wood tops with wood, metal and acrylic bases for example.
But over time, another key goal is to become even more of a whole-home resource with categories such as bedroom, offering a mix of full collections in wood furniture and even upholstery.
“We have a loyal customer base that comes to us for sculpture, wall art, sculptural furnishings and outdoor product, but we have no bookcases,” Phillips said. “And we have limited lighting. These are logical next categories for us. And eventually perhaps whole home, which would get us into full case collections and upholstery.”
“That is a bigger conversation, but in the meantime, we have an audience of interior designers that is ready to buy things like bookcases, armoires, lighting and chandeliers and all kinds of different and new categories from us,” he added. “We also have customers saying ‘give us more outdoor, give us more outdoor.’ So we are thinking that way, and it is a logical stepping stone for Phillips to become more of a whole-home brand.”
Phillips believes the time is right as the company has not only the tools in place to support such growth, ranging from warehousing and technology, but also a good team of designers and factories that can produce these categories moving forward. And with Mark Phillips still offering his talents working with existing factories and discovering new ones, the company is well poised to expand in these areas.
The company also is looking to further broaden its line to include items in more of a starting price point.
“There is a better, best story, but we are realizing that there is an area of good to explore,” Phillips noted, adding that this could evolve into a private-label type of business. “Mark has always wanted our products to be unique, and sometimes you have to pay for being unique. … But yeah, we want to have something for everybody.”
But developing more mass-market product will involve a balancing act that not only creates designs that sell in the marketplace, but also not straying too far from the company’s identity as a resource for unique objects that bear Phillips’ organic modern forms that can’t be found anywhere else.
“To go whole home, you have to go more mass market with broad appeal,” Phillips said, adding, “And then you start losing a little bit of your DNA. My vision for the future of this company is not quintupling in size. There is no way to be who we are and to be that size. … Can Phillips be a billion dollar brand with the DNA we have? Probably not. So you have to make the decision of which way you want to go and I think we want to preserve Phillips Collection because it is special. It has taken us 40 years to get where we are with our brand’s reputation.”
A big part of its future success, he said, will depend on its ability to innovate regardless of the price point. That’s more important than ever, particularly in an uncertain economic environment made even more challenging with looming tariffs and waning consumer confidence.
“When times are tough, it’s very easy to just complain and not innovate and wait for things to improve,” Phillips said. “So we have our ears open but our heads down innovating. There are a lot of new things you are going to see from Phillips Collection. We are not operating in a bubble as if things are not bad, but we are excited to show what’s going to be new at High Point Market and reinventing our showroom and evolving our products. And we are cautiously optimistic. There is market share available to companies that innovate.”
At the April High Point Market, the company and its executive team will be at their showroom at 135 S. Main St.
