California Apparel News

Six years after launching flash-sale site HauteLook, Adam Bernhard is leaving the company as its chief executive officer. He will remain an adviser.

Running the Los Angeles–based business will be Terry Boyle, currently HauteLook’s president. Boyle joined HauteLook in 2008 as its chief operating officer/chief financial officer.

Boyle will be reporting to Jamie Nordstrom, whose family-launched retail chain, Nordstrom Inc., acquired the site in 2011.

With HauteLook operating as a division of Nordstrom, no CEO will be appointed in Bernhard’s place, Nordstrom Inc. said.

“Since Adam started this business in 2007, he has worked tirelessly to build a great team and bring a compelling shopping experience to its customers,” said Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct. “Even after selling the business to us, his commitment to scaling [up] the business and bringing it to profitability never wavers. Adam and his team have more than held up their end of the bargain, and we are thrilled to be in a position where he can pass the reins to Terry and focus on some new opportunities for us.”

In the last few years, Bernhard has helped grow the website from a business with a little more than 4 million members to 14 million members. “It has been an unbelievable journey to grow HauteLook from a four-person startup into the thriving division of Nordstrom that it is today,” Bernhard said. “Although I’m eager for the new opportunities to come, HauteLook will always be my pride and joy.”

Bernhard, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from Palisades High School, started HauteLook after working at apparel company Joie and noticing a market for excess inventory.

His first website was called Liquid8usa.com. He later improved the website and renamed it HauteLook, which launched in December 2007 with four employees who worked in a rundown office building at the corner of Los Angeles Street and Olympic Boulevard.

The website offers top fashion and lifestyle brands at a discount. Each day at 8 a.m., new sales items are featured for a limited time.

By 2010, HauteLook’s revenues totaled more than $100 million. It was sold to Nordstrom for as much as $270 million in stock.

Nordstrom reported that for the six months ended Aug. 3, HauteLook and its two-store chain, Jeffrey, had revenues of $156 million, compared with $124 million the previous year.