Emilie Arel joined mattress brand Casper for a personal reason. “I have two little kids -- they both slept on a Casper before I worked at Casper,” she said. “The way I realized how great a Casper was, I would fall asleep on their bed every night.”

Arel joined Casper in late 2019 as its president and chief commercial officer. She oversees all the disparate and growing parts of Casper’s retail business. Arel spoke on the Modern Retail Podcast about what she’s focused on during her tenure, as well as how the pandemic through everything into disarray. “I don’t think we recognized how much people would invest in their home so quickly,” she said. “We had no clue we’d still be sitting in our houses almost a year from then that was not on the horizon.”

Her first mandate as CCO was to tie all the business threads together. Casper has over 60 stores around the United States and is sold at retailers including Target, Nordstrom and Raymour and Flanigan. Wholesale specifically has been a real emphasis for Arel. True, Casper began as an online brand, but it needed the help of national chains to really grow.

“The majority of beds in the United States are still bought in a trial location somewhere you can lay down in the bed,” she said. So Arel has spent the last year thinking about which retail partners would be best for Casper. One of the most important aspects of the wholesale retail experience, she said, is making sure every sales associate is armed with the proper training -- “so that they understand our product, and they understand our focus on sleep.”

But Casper’s real focus right now is making a name for itself beyond just mattresses. The brand has launched a bunch of new sleep-associated products, including blankets and pillows. And Arel said Casper is seeing huge growth from these ancillary products.

The intent now, she said, is to continue to launch new sleep products, while making more people -- not just hip millennials -- aware of the brand. “Soon we’ll be talking to consumers in a different way, with a slightly different voice,” she said.