Maura Zambarano: A Source and Force for Comfort

In little more than one year, Maura Zambarano has become a recognized and welcome presence in the hospitality industry, known particularly among boutique and luxury hoteliers for her ability to deliver the best sleep possible to discerning guests. So much so that her firm, Mattress Concierge, was recently honored as 2025’s Hospitality Mattress Company of the Year by Hospitality Business Review Magazine.

The fact that Mattress Concierge was recognized over many larger, better-known brands and competitors barely 12 months after Zambarano assumed ownership is a testament to the company’s role in providing luxury sleep experiences to boutique hotels and resorts across the country—and to the woman leading it.

Ask Zambarano herself, and she’ll likely share that before taking the reins of Mattress Concierge, she knew little about mattresses or the mattress business beyond the concept that sleeping on a good one was important to the healthy lifestyle she maintains. That abruptly changed when her ex-husband, Rob Richards, the previous owner of Mattress Concierge, and father to her two children, passed away unexpectedly in May of 2024.

“I knew little about Mattress Concierge other than Rob owned it, and that his goal was to eventually grow it into a family business, a legacy for his children,” Zambarano recalls. “Unfortunately, at the time of his death, our children were 17 and 19 and nowhere ready to assume control of a business that they knew nothing about. In the process of untangling records for his estate and speaking to many of his customers, I slowly came to the realization that it was very important not to take the easy route, sell the company to investors and walk away. Instead, I made the decision to figure out how to keep his dream alive.”

Of course, Zambarano already had a successful, full-time career of her own, as a consultant focused on the development of not-for-profit senior living communities. But, she was also armed with a strong work ethic and innate sense of service that had been ignited during her childhood by stories shared by her grandfather, a shipping manager for Anaconda Copper Co., and later by her father, who eventually guided her into her first corporate job, at the same property and casualty insurance software company where he worked.

But not before the young businesswoman had begun to hone her sales and marketing skills. With a pair of partners, and her “cool bloodhound in tow,” she had been traveling the country following college sampling and selling sauces out of a retrofitted Airstream trailer.

“I was 22 at the time, having a tremendous amount of fun and learning a lot about grass roots marketing. It was an experience that has served me well ever since,” Zambarano says.

Of course, her father continued to encourage the young entrepreneur to develop her burgeoning skill sets in the corporate world, and eventually she and her dog came in from the cold. Zambarano specialized in property and casualty software solution sales.

“There was a layer between my father and I in the insurance company where we worked, but I was incredibly fortunate to have him as a mentor. He was an incredible leader, and though he passed almost eight years ago, to this day I still receive notes from people on LinkedIn that begin, ‘Your Dad was the best boss I ever had,’” she says. “He gave me an incredible foundation to build on and really helped me understand the importance of customer service, trust, and authenticity. From my grandfather and my father, I learned to stand behind my word, and never tell anyone anything that’s not true in order to close a sale.”

Eventually she met Richards, and when the company he was working for relocated its headquarters to Connecticut, Zambarano followed. A local advertising agency she called on had begun working with a client in retirement living services and recommended her for a job, and the position would place her on the vanguard of the senior living industry.

More than two decades later, Zambarano would never have imagined that her background in senior living would prepare her beautifully for the role she was to undertake in leading Mattress Concierge.

Simply put, as she began her deep dive into the mattress business, the executive quickly learned that the hospitality and senior living development industries share one crucial overlap: The importance of authenticity and exceptional customer service and the difference a great mattress can make in the quality of a stay, whether overnight in a hotel, or as a guest of a senior living community.

“I became amazed by how much of what I had been doing for nearly my entire career in the senior living space intersected with the hospitality business, and it wasn’t necessarily my economics major, my experiences in grass roots marketing, or my belief in great customer service, although all that certainly helped propel me—and Mattress Concierge—forward,” Zambarano said.

“It’s the nuances that people don’t necessarily consider…like the importance of the kind of steel rod edging that we use in a hospitality-grade mattress, and why that detail matters in senior living. As they age, people tend to sit on the edge of their beds more often as they get dressed. Or why, it’s important in a senior living space to consider not only the comfort and support of a mattress, but the scale and design of the bedroom furniture around it. If there are large spaces beneath the furniture, and say, a watch or piece of jewelry rolls off the nightstand onto the floor, retrieving it can be difficult for an occupant bent on maintaining self-sufficiency. While as far too many guests are aware, reach under the nightstand or bed in a hotel environment, no matter how luxurious, and you’re liable to pull out a handful of dust. In either case, thoughtful design is everything.”

Indeed, since senior living spaces today need to feel much more like luxury hotel experiences, both industries, as well as consumers, are now benefiting from Zambarano’s presence and influence. And given Zambarano’s swiftly growing reputation for pairing superior customer service with an ability to deliver luxurious sleep experiences, so are all those looking to Mattress Concierge as a vendor.

“I’m honored by how quickly I have been welcomed into the arms of the hospitality industry, and just as quickly, that I’ve found that it is actually possible to have dual careers and passions,” she says. “The connecting thread woven through all of this is my devotion to making people comfortable, no matter the setting.”

That feeling of comfort now also extends to ending the stigma of addiction, Zambarano explains, noting her ex-husband’s sudden cause of death. “Rob was a smart businessman, a kind and thoughtful human that was burdened with alcoholism” she says. “At first I was very vague as to how Rob passed until one hotel client kept asking questions and I finally said he died of alcoholism. The client responded with their story of addiction and was thankful that I had shared.” As so many people have reached out to ask how ZambaranoI came to be running Mattress Concierge throughout the past year, She has been astonished to learn how prevalent the disease actually is. Given the predominance of similar stories—of husbands, brothers, uncles, wives, sisters, mothers, children and friends affected. “I have turned to make it my mission to be a part of the movement to end the stigma of addiction and to be a source and a force for comfort in all that I do and the businesses I represent.”