Hartmann named a director at HD Supply

John Hartmann, the former True Value Company CEO, has been appointed a member of the HD Supply Holdings board of directors.

The move marks a return to HD Supply for Hartmann. He served as an executive for HD Supply for three years.

The move “is particularly special to me since I spent over 7 years with The Home Depot and HD Supply earlier in my career,” Hartmann wrote on a Linkedin post.

Hartmann served as True Value Company CEO for seven years spanning 2013 to 2020. During his tenure, he led a major transition from a member-owned co-op to a privately owned distributor—releasing equity back to members in the process.

In May 2020, Hartmann took on a role with Bed Bath & Beyond. Following a leadership transition at the struggling housewares brand, his role was eliminated in August last year. (Bed Bath & Beyond has since declared bankruptcy and announced a winding down of operations. Read article here.)

HD Supply is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Home Depot. The company is a national leader in the maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) space, well-versed in distributing products in the multifamily, hospitality, healthcare and other similar markets.

Atlanta-based HD Supply has a long history with The Home Depot. Originally known as Maintenance Warehouse, it was acquired by Home Depot in 1997, and changed its name to HD Supply. The connection was uprooted in 2007, when the home improvement retailer under then CEO Frank Blake divested of the business. The companies reunited in 2020 in an $8 billion deal that Home Depot described as an important step to capturing the growing and highly fragmented MRO marketplace.

On its website, HD Supply describes its offering as a “vast assortment of over 100,000 MRO, full-line janitorial and OS&E products from high-quality, national and private brands.”