Rent the Runway names Nordstrom veteran Paige Thomas as chief executive
The move comes as the rental company reports revenue up nearly 21% and a net loss cut by more than half.
Rent the Runway has promoted its chief commercial officer, Paige Thomas, to chief executive, effective Monday. She replaces Teri Bariquit, who has run the company on an interim basis since co-founder Jennifer Hyman departed in May and now becomes the company's non-executive board chair.
Thomas joined Rent the Runway only in June, after a decade at Nordstrom that included five years running Nordstrom Rack. She was previously chief merchant and product innovation officer at Signet Jewelers and, before that, president and chief executive of Saks Off 5th.
She is one of several Nordstrom alumni now inside the company. Bariquit herself was Nordstrom's chief merchant before taking the interim role, and the appointment continues a pattern of Rent the Runway drawing its leadership from department store retail rather than fashion technology.
Thomas's connection to the business predates her arrival. Four years ago, while she led Saks Off 5th, the off-price retailer partnered with Rent the Runway on a programme letting customers buy previously rented designer items through the Saks Off 5th website.
That website was shut down early this year when Saks Off 5th's e-commerce operation was liquidated as part of the bankruptcy of parent Saks Global. Nordstrom Rack has run a separate arrangement selling Rent the Runway garments since 2020.
What the board changed alongside the CEO role
Dhiren Fonseca is stepping down as executive chairman but remains a director, with Bariquit taking the non-executive chair seat he vacates. The reshuffle puts three of the company's most senior positions, chief executive, board chair and the vacated chairmanship, in motion within a single announcement.
Rent the Runway describes itself as a fashion technology company built to change how consumers access high-end clothing and accessories, the model that underpins its subscription and rental business and the one Thomas now runs day to day. The company positions itself against a broader shift toward renting rather than owning occasion wear.
The results announced alongside the appointment
The leadership news landed the same day as Rent the Runway's second-quarter results, which showed total revenue rising nearly 21% year over year to $97.7 million. Gross margin expanded by 610 basis points to 36.1% over the same period, a meaningful improvement in unit economics.
Net loss narrowed by more than half to $12.9 million, a sharper improvement than the revenue growth alone would suggest. Active subscribers, however, fell nearly 4% to 140,826, a decline that runs against the stronger top line the quarter otherwise delivered.
That gap, growing revenue against a shrinking subscriber base, is the awkward detail beneath an otherwise improving set of numbers. It suggests the company is extracting more value per remaining customer rather than expanding its overall base of renters.
In a statement, Bariquit said the company had focused its resources in the quarter on its core rental offer and had begun building what she called a 2027 plan centred on transforming the business, without giving further detail on that plan's contents.
Thomas, for her part, characterised her mandate as continuity rather than change. Her approach, she said in her own statement, is not a new direction but an acceleration of the strong foundation the team has built, echoing Bariquit's framing of steady progress.
What this adds to our executive coverage
We have tracked a run of leadership turnover across luxury-adjacent retail this year, from Space NK naming Emma Simpson-Scott chief executive after Andy Lightfoot's decade in charge to Theory promoting James Kelly to global chief executive, moving Dinesh Tandon into a co-chief operating officer role.
Rent the Runway's changes follow a similar shape to those moves: an internal or recently arrived executive stepping up rather than an outside search, and a departing leader shifting into a governance role rather than leaving the company altogether.
The pattern also echoes what we found at Selfridges, where chief executive André Maeder set out a strategy built on steadying the business before expanding it, and at Bang & Olufsen, where Gianfilippo Testa arrived from outside audio leadership entirely.
The company has not said when Thomas will set out fuller detail on the 2027 plan Bariquit referenced, nor whether the subscriber decline will factor into how that plan is shaped. Both are the questions its next results will need to answer.
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