For the month of February, we are spotlighting Laura Holland, Vice President of Marketing for Hickory Chair. View this page to learn more about this skilled furniture industry executive.
General Information:
Name: Laura Holland
Title/Position: Vice President of Marketing
Company: Hickory Chair
Location: Hickory, NC
ASID Carolinas Information:
Have you held any leadership positions with ASID Carolinas? If so, in what capacity?
Yes. I loved being the Industry Partner representative to the board.
What event of ASID’s have you enjoyed the most and why?
The yearly planning meeting at Hot Springs! HA! I enjoyed attending the yearly conferences. Networking with friends and making new connections are wonderful. Learning challenges of the membership and then trying to find solutions that Hickory Chair can provide is rewarding. One of the things that I learned as a member was how the curriculum of design schools had changed so dramatically over the years. I learned how little time is spent on furniture, fabrics and residential design. Not everyone works in an office, school or hospital but everyone has a home. As a result, Hickory Chair has numerous CEU courses that are offered. We have a one-hour course on the differences between price points of furniture from starting, mid to high end upholstery and wood products. We also offer a six-hour CEU course that is held at Hickory Chair. I enjoy teaching these courses and am amazed how much of the information is new to the audience whether they are a student or a seasoned designer.
What do you gain most out of your ASID membership?
An understanding of the needs of the membership and relationships forged with amazing members across the chapter. Mentoring and sharing knowledge. I enjoy mentoring students and leading our training programs.
If you could give advice to any student coming into the design industry, what would that be?
Engage with ASID members. Ask for internships. Ask for opportunities to work in a showroom during Furniture Market. Ask to sit in on fabric presentations during Show Time. Make sure your portfolio includes more than class projects. Make sure your portfolio includes both residential and commercial projects. Most jobs in the Carolinas are residential and a school-based portfolio will be weighted toward commercial projects, CAD and systems. I recommend adding your future dream home as part of your portfolio. It would show your taste, talent, your skill to do residential work and drive to go the extra mile.
If you are on social media, make sure that your profile and posts are complimentary to the person you are. What you post reflects on your taste and character. Social Media is your first opportunity to brand yourself. Make sure that you brand yourself well.
Favorite project you’ve worked on?
My favorite project would have to be creating our catalogs. These 300-500 page books take great thought to design. Not only do I think about how to categorize the product by style, scale and function, I think about how a designer shops online. Our catalogs have morphed into ‘visual web sites’. Each category has products arranged so that if you are looking for a modern sofa, all of the modern sofas are together, by scale, by type. It is like shopping a site like Amazon where if you like this, you might also like one of these alternatives. In the index section, not only will you find categories of types like all sofas in numerical order, you will also find indexes of everything a particular designer collection includes. Lastly, we include a numerical and an alphabetical index. We try to make finding the right project easy. In addition, I enjoy writing the copy for the products and strengthening our branding with these books.
What is one of your proudest accomplishments?
When I joined Hickory Chair in 1985, very few women were in leadership roles in the industry. This was true for Hickory Chair as well. I started as a temp at the switchboard and today I am a vice president. I was hired first as a Sales Trainee. In this role I had the opportunity to work in every department in the office and factory. I had to prove myself credible in order to be promoted to a Sales Representative. I did not know that I was the first female ever hired for this position. I was fortunate that the sales management at the time believed that I was the type of person they could invest their time into as a good investment. I did not know that I was the first female to have this opportunity. I became the third female Sales Representative in the company’s history. This success lead to many roles later on. I believe that presenting myself properly and then my determination to always exceed expectation gave me the opportunity to not only grow within the company, but also raise the glass ceiling for other talented women to flourish as well. Due to the knowledge I have acquired I am proud to serve the company leading marketing, communications, sales training and as an executive board member.