Christi Barbour, Barbour Spangle Design’s founding partner, has been selected as a 2020 Outstanding Women in Business award recipient by Triad Business Journal. Barbour received the accolade for her inspirational and executive leadership, community engagement and volunteerism along with her business mentoring and outstanding entrepreneurship.
“This award is a tremendous honor for which I am deeply appreciative,” stated Barbour. “I am passionate about the transformative power of interior design so I thoroughly enjoy sharing my experience, knowledge and enthusiasm with others. I also love living and working in High Point and being able to promote it through the High Point Discovered blog. It’s been hard work, and has required a team of dedicated pros to build it with me, but ultimately, it’s a love letter to the city that has brought me so much joy and success, and is doing the same for others.”
Twenty years ago, Barbour teamed up with another area designer, Christi Spangle, to launch the award-winning Barbour Spangle Design in High Point. Working with clients from around the globe, Barbour says she and Spangle enjoy the challenges of leading a team of 14 as they design beautiful environments for luxury residential, showroom, commercial and educational clients. Because the firm works with companies that create the home furnishings and design elements that residential and commercial customers will eventually enjoy, Barbour Spangle is uniquely situated, having a 360-degree view of the design landscape. It allows them to see what is new, smart and extraordinary in design and furnishings far ahead of most firms and to intersperse the best of each design discipline to apply the company’s mantra, ‘anything is possible’ to their clients’ projects.
Building a successful business takes different skills and talents, and the Outstanding Woman in Business award sought to recognize that as well. Barbour notes, “It has been an interesting and sometimes arduous road” growing from designer to entrepreneur to business manager to CEO, leader and mentor. While the process often stretched Barbour beyond where she felt comfortable and capable, she found that “it opened a door into a world that I really love, and that’s mentoring a team of creative professionals,” Barbour says. Barbour Spangle Design is now one of the largest and most diverse design firms in the region.
In addition to the interior design business, Barbour is passionate about the city of High Point and all that it has to offer. She saw a need to endorse High Point’s revitalization efforts so she quietly started an anonymous Instagram feed to shine a light on the people and businesses transforming High Point. By word-of-mouth the High Point Discovered page garnered a small but loyal following of over 500 people. In 2018 she determined that it was time to expand her Instagram efforts by adding an associated blog. Since then High Point Discovered has become a worldwide go-to source for spotlighting the very best of what High Point has to offer with each post receiving over 20K monthly views worldwide. In light of this amazing success in just 18 short months, High Point Discovered has been spun off into its own non-profit entity with Barbour serving as its board of directors’ chair.
Barbour also serves as a board member for Forward High Point, the YMCA of High Point and the High Point University Advisory Board to the Interior Design program. She was recently invited to be a part of Leadership High Point which develops community leaders and was the first interior designer invited to be named to the Executive Committee of the High Point Market Authority Board and only the second interior designer to be on the board, which oversees the programs and services for the semi-annual High Point Market. With the executive committee’s guidance, the market has a major economic impact on the local economy and the entire state of North Carolina.
