Herman Miller and Knoll Complete Merger, Become MillerKnoll

Earlier this year, Herman Miller and Knoll announced a $1.8 billion merger that would bring both legacy American office furniture brands under one shared portfolio. Now, three months after the news broke, the two mainstays have revealed even more insight into how they’ll come together. Pending approval from Herman Miller shareholders, the newly merged business will be known as MillerKnoll. All individual brands under the MillerKnoll umbrella, such as Herman Miller, Knoll, Holly Hunt, Hay, and Design Within Reach, will retain their original names. 

While the new branding may come as a jarring adjustment for design-world traditionalists, it also paves a promising path forward for the long-term viability of both brands within an industry weathering seismic shifts in the way we live and work. Under the new corporate umbrella, both brands seem well-poised to surmount these challenges. “Resimercial” offices were already taking off well before the pandemic ushered in a widespread remote work culture—a phenomenon that Herman Miller successfully leaned into with a new experiential retail model that caters to both contract clients and everyday buyers.

According to MillerKnoll president and CEO Andi Owen, the merger will be symbiotic—the new structure will allow the brands to play off each other’s strengths and exceed what they could accomplish previously. Once the deal has been finalized, immediate top priorities will include growing the enterprise’s retail and contract channels in both categories while carving out new manufacturing, technology, and digital strategies. “We’re excited to introduce MillerKnoll, a collective of dynamic brands coming together to design the world we live in,” Owen said in a statement. “Our industry—and the world in general—is changing rapidly. Design is the way we imagine and shape a better future. In coming together, we will define and lead this transformation. As MillerKnoll, we’ll push and inspire each other to innovate and design the future for all the places where life happens.”

The news comes shortly after Herman Miller launched the Diversity in Design collaborative, which saw the brand team with dozens of major design companies to take meaningful action to increase diversity within the industry.