The American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame has opened nominations for the 2025 Home Furnishings Leadership Institute. The annual event, now in its fourth year, will be held Feb. 16-20, 2025, at High Point University.
The class for each year’s Institute is limited to 25 emerging leaders who are under 40 years old and selected based on competitive nominations from across the industry.
“I would recommend this program to anyone looking to network more and learn more about the industry,” says Josh Fenner, director of the Sealy Brand for Tempur Sealy, who participated in the 2024 Institute. He adds that the Institute also “gives you an opportunity to develop your own interpersonal skills, your own networking skills and your own leadership skills … to really be a leader and a force in your company for the future.”
Each year, the Leadership Institute introduces all-new topics and materials relevant to today’s business landscape. Fashioned after the prestigious Harvard Business School Seminar for the Young President’s Organization and Chief Executives Organization – attended by many leaders in the home furnishings industry – the Hall of Fame Leadership Institute leverages the power and impact of peer learning gained through focused tutorials. The five-day event is designed to accelerate and nurture the growth of leadership in the home furnishings industry across all business segments.
“The content planning is almost completed and will be a powerful mix of interaction with inducted members of the Hall of Fame, lively peer discussions, lectures and group presentations,” says Karen McNeill, Hall of Fame CEO. “A critical element of the mission of the Hall of Fame is to inspire a new class of leaders. Through peer learning, the Institute connects the industry’s finest emerging leaders with one another, providing a path for them to grow into even stronger leaders.”
As part of the learning experience, each year’s Leadership Institute includes a series of keynote interviews and challenge questions for interactive discussions with distinguished industry leaders. Throughout these sessions, Institute participants explore a central defining question. Building on these discussions, the event also involves case study exercises that culminate in “Pillar Group” presentations to a panel of judges. In addition, select faculty from High Point University’s Phillips School of Business and the Nido R. Qubein School of Communications lead a combination of lectures and discussions.
“The Leadership Institute is an opportunity to intimately get to know your peers, hone your leadership skills, learn about vision, mission, how to actually run a company, and to also learn from other executives that have experienced the same things,” says Molly Mays, national account and development manager for Uttermost, who participated in the 2024 Institute.
While the demands of the home furnishings industry can leave executives “siloed in our own companies,” participating in the Leadership Institute provided a chance to take a step back, lift my head and work with my peers, and also learn from these leaders in the industry, and it really challenged me to sharpen my own leadership skills,” says Jessica Norby, senior sales director of Vivet/Markor, a member of the 2024 class. “The Home Furnishings Leadership Institute is a jam packed, five-day learning experience where we get to have access to people that we normally wouldn't have access to in our industry, but also be a part of something that is big for young adults and professionals in the industry.”
