Ex-DFS CMO Toni Wood on her startup adventure
Attracted by the chance to tackle a “thorny consumer issue”, former DFS CMO Toni Wood has swapped sofas for the startup world as she looks to inject some brand building expertise into ecommerce site Ufurnish.
Ufurnish is on a mission to become one of the UK’s fastest growing online retail tech companies within the next 18 months. A search engine for furniture and furnishings, the site allows consumers to discover, compare and buy from a range of high-profile brands such as Made.com, Dunelm and Wayfair, alongside less well-known independents.
To add some fuel to its ambitions, the business brought Toni Wood on board in August as its first CMO. Formerly DFS chief marketing and commercial officer, Wood brings a wealth of retail and FMCG experience from the likes of Sainsbury’s, Britvic, Proctor & Gamble and Costa Coffee.
She explains that the opportunity to build a brand from the bottom up, and not have to rethink an existing strategy, made Ufurnish too exciting an opportunity to ignore.
“When I was at DFS I was accountable for the consumer insights team as part of my role, so I spent three and a half years working with the team to get under the skin of what really matters to consumers,” Wood explains.
This showed her how much people love their homes and aspire to create the perfect space, but that achieving that can prove tricky because the home and furnishing market is so fragmented. Wood noticed how having to search across a host of retailers for products mixing different styles and budgets made for a frustrating customer journey.
