Nambé’s executive team – all of whom joined the company within the last year – are eager to spread the word that the 57-year-old Santa Fe producer is virtually a new enterprise, but one which capitalizes on the many strengths for which this tried-and-true supplier is known. Form as function, less is more – Nambe design signatures on metal giftware – have now been carried over to crystal, porcelain, and flatware making Nambé for the first time in its history a total tabletop resource.

Robert Varakian, appointed president and CEO last year, is a longtime admirer and, thus, thrilled to be helping in the renaissance. “I always viewed Nambé as the gold standard in design and quality,” says Varakian. The chief exec’s extensive history on both sides of the housewares aisle place him on the perch of a tsunami of product development and rebranding initiatives. “This is all about establishing Nambé as a tabletop company in addition to an already established giftware company,” he says.

Certainly a ballsy move when most tabletop suppliers are looking to do precisely the opposite.
“We’re excited about the opportunity of moving into tabletop,” Varakian counters. “This is a great time for us to bring tabletop products to market that fill a niche, that have that Nambé aesthetic.” This past year, for example, Nambé entered the flatware arena with a significant 27-pattern statement. The flatware launch followed the brand’s arrival in crystal, 1998, and porcelain, 2003. (Moving ahead those two categories will be much better developed.) It’s been an enormously ambitious year. “In the last 12 months we devised a growth strategy for product development, cut expenses, developed a long-term marketing strategy, and put in the right management team,” pronounces Varakian, essentially a tabletop newcomer, but with extensive housewares experience. (Varakian held positions at JCPenney, Ekco, Catalina Lighting, and Kamenstein.) His cohorts are established tabletop veterans. Matt Jones joined on as V.P. of sales after similar stints at Wedgwood and Lenox. Jim Eggers, the company’s V.P. of marketing, racked up years at IKEA and Pottery Barn sourcing and developing product. “We’re all pleased to be associated with this brand and we have a great deal of things planned,” Eggers acknowledges. “The family has high expectations for Nambé.”

That family would be the Hillenbrands, who in addition to Nambé are majority shareholders in the multibillion-dollar Hillenbrand Industries, the Indiana-based, publicly-traded enterprise in the health care and funeral service industries. In 1981, John Hillenbrand II purchased Nambé, then not even a million-dollar operation. The family still maintains an active and hands-on role, says Hillenbrand’s son Dan, chairman of the board. (His father, brother John III, and brother-in-law Jim Weyhrauch serve on the board of directors.) The family are all bullish on this prized holding. “Nambé has never been a follower,” he assures, “and we aim to keep it that way.”

That’s why, Hillenbrand continues, the company is solidly forging into tabletop at a time when others are fleeing. “Tabletop is a natural fit for us,” he says. “We’re not placing limits on where we will go. There is supportive ownership, resources, talent, and a desire so the plan is to make Nambé as large and as profitable as we can.” Growth will be organic, interjects Varakian. “We’re gradually taking steps from our core,” Varakian proffers. “This way the customer follows us naturally. We plan to grow both tabletop and giftware and we will be more aggressive in product development than we have in the past.”

Nambé, for many years, rode its own coattails. Its signature organic, sensual, curvy, clean seven-alloy cocktail – on bowls, vases, platters, and candleholders – has been a stock-in-trade since 1951. The company rarely ventured beyond this lucrative, but confining comfort zone. In fact, Nambé’s assortments over the years looked remarkably similar to the ones that were first sold at a roadside stand by founder Pauline Cable. The erstwhile Ohio debutante was living outside Santa Fe when she discovered a faltering foundry on an Indian reservation whose products she bought and hawked from the side of a road. (Fun fact: The original Nambé alloy was created in the 1940s just up the road at the Los Alamos National Laboratory where the atomic bomb was developed.)