Years of diligent effort support CEO’s success

STITCHING TOGETHER A NEW STORY: Hope Global President and CEO Cheryl Merchant, left, has led the transformation of the company into a global supplier of engineered textile solutions. Here she speaks with Robert Ewing, supervisor of the weaving division at the company’s Cumberland manufacturing facility. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
STITCHING TOGETHER A NEW STORY: Hope Global President and CEO Cheryl Merchant, left, has led the transformation of the company into a global supplier of engineered textile solutions. Here she speaks with Robert Ewing, supervisor of the weaving division at the company’s Cumberland manufacturing facility. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

When you ask Cheryl Merchant, president and CEO of Hope Global in Cumberland, how she’s doing at the start of a conversation, like most of us she will say she’s doing great. In her case, she truly means it.
“I’m already rocking this morning,” said Merchant, a phrase uttered completely without irony at an hour when many people are still blinking.
“She has more energy than I can even fathom,” said Leslie Taito, senior vice president of new-business development. It was Merchant who wooed Taito away from a post as director of the R.I. Office of Regulatory Reform. Taito doesn’t hesitate to say that she’s banked her career on Merchant and believes her to be a winning bet. “We all say she’s like the Energizer bunny,” Taito said
Hope Global develops and manufactures textiles for automotive, commercial and industrial use. Founded in 1883 in Pawtucket as Hope Webbing Co., it produced mainly cotton webbing. In 1957 the Casty family bought Hope and began producing apparel and parachute cord, as well as industrial cordage and shoelaces.
Merchant comes by her energy honestly. Long before she was presiding over a worldwide operation, she was being groomed to be a hard worker and a leader with integrity. She honed these skills toiling as a child on her family’s 350-acre Michigan farm. Every day before school, she and her sister rose in the early-morning hours to feed hundreds of cattle, hogs, chickens, ducks and goats, returning in the evening to do the same. “My mom was pretty emphatic about it. She told us that we were responsible for them,” said Merchant.
Merchant credits the sense of togetherness as just as important as the development of a work ethic. “We learned how to understand teamwork. We might be walking the fields or cleaning barns, but we were having fun, and we were a family working together,” she said.
She learned more than a thing or two about managing finances during that time. She saved up enough money to buy her first car at age 16, recalling how she scraped together some of the funds: she and her sister would get a nickel per ladybug they pulled off the potato plants.
It was in the Motor City – Detroit – Merchant began to make a name for herself. She spent time managing teams at General Motors, Mazda and Ford Motor Co. When Ford acquired the interior trim company Lear Corp., Merchant jumped at the chance to run factories all over the world.
She evaluates her career with the same honesty she learned year after year on the farm. “It hasn’t always been great,” she said. “I didn’t always succeed. In one of the plants, there was a team that I just could not pull together.” Still, Merchant persevered, using each new task to learn more about the industry. “When I was in the paint shop, I learned to paint Cadillacs,” she said. “When my team was making seats, I sat down at a sewing machine.”
People outside her workplace took notice of Merchant’s efforts. David Casty, president and CEO of Hope Webbing Co., was one of her suppliers. He offered her a job, and Merchant came onboard in 1999.
Since then, Merchant has presided over Hope Global during a period of tremendous challenge and expansion.
“When Merchant arrived … Hope Webbing was a company that no longer made webbing. Although it may have been just a change in the name, ‘Hope Global, Engineered Textile Solutions’ became a way of life under Cheryl’s direction,” Taito wrote in Merchant’s award nomination form.
Merchant said she restructured the company, which then functioned as a “brake-management organization,” with everyone in the large organization reporting directly to her. “You can’t function that way. It’s too controlling, and you can’t grow,” she said.
“Cheryl truly believes that two heads are better than one,” said Taito. “She’s made it more of a group-think environment here.”
According to both women, Merchant’s emphasis on teamwork and thoughtful leadership served the organization well in rocky business climates, such as the recession of 2008, which saw many of the group’s suppliers and customers succumbing to bankruptcy.
Her methods also helped the company weather two floods – in 2005 and 2010 – that brought the company to its knees. Located on the banks of the Blackstone River, the company lost about $6 million during the 2005 flooding. “We couldn’t get into the plant in Cumberland,” she recalled. “It was a foot of sludge and dead animals in there. And I told my team, it was bad, and we couldn’t even tell how bad.”
Although the governor’s work-share program was put in place to provide some relief, members of Merchant’s team were quick to put on boots and gloves to get back to work. Her voice became emotional as she recalled her workers saying they wanted to clean their own machines. The flooding in 2010 was less severe, and the company was more prepared.
By the end of 2010, the company had fully recovered from the recession and both floods: employees were able to walk away from the company holiday party holding checks representing 150 percent of promised bonus pay.
A combination of the company’s environmental sustainability efforts, diversification of products and quick footwork during hard times has made the figures for Hope Global look good. Under Merchant’s leadership, the company has enjoyed consistent sales growth: just above 12 percent in 2011 and 9.5 percent in 2013. And it is poised to keep on going. From 2011 to 2013, net sales increased from $58 million to $71 million, with profits following suit.
“We’re on a growth path that’s absolutely phenomenal. We’re headed to double in the next four to five years. It’s a very exciting time around here,” said Merchant. •

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