Jason Goldberger. (LinkedIn Photo)

Jason Goldberger is out at Blue Nile.

Goldberger has left his post as CEO of the Seattle-based online jeweler, a year-and-a-half after he joined the company from Target, GeekWire has learned.

Eric Anderson, executive vice president at Bain Capital Private Equity, is filling in as interim CEO. Bain Capital was one of three firms that acquired Blue Nile in 2017.

Here’s a statement from Blue Nile:

“Eric Anderson has assumed the role of Interim CEO while we conduct a search for the successor to Jason Goldberger, who has moved on to pursue his next challenge. We are continuing to invest behind our strategic priorities and new capabilities to accelerate growth.”

Goldberger declined to comment when contacted by GeekWire.

Before heading up Blue Nile, Goldberger led Target’s e-commerce efforts for nearly four years. He previously was an executive at Gilt.com, Hayneedle, and Amazon, where he spent more than seven years at the Seattle-based tech giant. At Blue Nile, Goldberger replaced Harvey Kanter, who remains chairman.

Blue Nile, which went public in 2004, sold to a group of private equity firms — Bain Capital; Bow Street; Adama Partners — for $500 million in February 2017. The company kept its Seattle headquarters and became a privately-held company.

Since then, Blue Nile brought on three executives — Goldberger; Ruth Sommers, chief operating officer; and Erin Daley, chief marketing officer — who are no longer with the company.

Chief Product Officer Dave Fleischman, who joined in September 2017, and Chief Merchandising Officer Katie Zimmerman, who joined in March 2018, remain at Blue Nile.

Bill Koefoed, Blue Nile’s chief financial officer who was also hired this past March, told GeekWire in November that the company expects to go public again.

Prior to its acquisition, Blue Nile was bringing in about $400 million in revenue per year. In the last year it cleared $500 million in revenue. Koefoed said Blue Nile overhauled its supply chain, cutting off multiple layers of middlemen and building tighter relationships with manufacturers. This helped reduce supply costs and boost the company’s bottom line.

Blue Nile’s online store.

The U.S. online jewelry and watch sales industry has grown by 6.8 percent over the past five years and reached $8 billion in 2018, according to IBISWorld. Blue Nile competes with companies such as Amazon, Etsy, Signet Jewelers, James Allen, Ritani, and others.

Though Blue Nile is primarily focused on e-commerce, it has six brick-and-mortar locations in malls in Bellevue, Wash.; Portland; Tyson’s Corner, Va.; Salem N.H.; and White Plains and Garden City, N.Y. These are showrooms for the products Blue Nile sells online, giving customers a chance to try them out before purchasing digitally.

Entrepreneur and investor Mark Vadon founded Blue Nile in 1999.

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