WIFI Celebrates Wins, Maps Out Programming for the Second Half of 2023

WIFI Spring 2023 Board Meeting in Rocky Face Georgia.jpg

Attendees of the WIFI board meeting in Rocky Face, Georgia, (from left) Amy Rush-Imber, publisher and editor-in-chief of Floor Covering Weekly; Tanja Kern, associate publisher and editorial director, Floor Trends; Andrea Blackbourn, executive director, Floor Covering Industry Foundation; Chanel Clifford, VP business development, Cali; Dana Teague, VP strategic markets, Informa; Emily Morrow Finkell, VP residential design, Engineered Floors; and Athena Walker, organizational capabilities partner, Shaw Industries.

Women in the Floorcovering Industry (WIFI) celebrated successes and made plans to expand its impact at the organization's spring board meeting held on April 26 at The Farm in Rocky Face, Georgia.

Wins so far this year include individual and corporate sponsorships which are funding in-person networking events, the WIFI Mentorship Program and WIFI Power Hour educational webinars.

Thirty women are currently participating in the inaugural cohort of the WIFI Mentorship program. The board is beginning recruitment for participants for the fall cohort, which has an application deadline of August 31.

The program is designed for those who identify as a woman working in the flooring industry. You don’t have to be a member of WIFI to join the mentoring program, but if you would like to support the organization, you can join WIFI as a member here. The mentoring program is six-month in length, and sessions are virtual, using video conference software such as Zoom or MS Teams.

Applications for the fall 2023 cohort of mentors and mentees will be taken until August 31, 2023. Training will be provided to mentors in September 2023 and through on-going bi-monthly calls. This cohort of mentee/mentor matches will start in October and run through March 2024.

WIFI hosted three in-person networking events so far this year: a breakfast at The International Surface Event, sponsored by Mohawk; a breakfast at the National Flooring Alliance spring meeting in St. Kitts, sponsored by Cali; and a networking cocktail at Coverings, sponsored by Louisville Tile. Mannington Commercial plans to host an event at NeoCon in Chicago on June 13.

Monthly WIFI Power Hours are monthly webinars available to anyone and are designed to help women who work in the floor covering industry grow personally and professionally. See the schedule here.

The board said it could not do this programming without the support of individual and corporate sponsors. Corporate sponsors to date include Hearst, Louisville Tile Distributors, Inc.; Mannington Mills, Inc.; Mohawk Industries, Shaw Industries and Southwind Building Products.

To learn more about WIFI, visit womeninflooring.org.

See past coverage of WIFI on Floor Trends here.

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Tanja Kern is the associate publisher and editorial director of FLOOR Trends & Installation. She is also the host of the FLOORtalk podcast, where she explores the changes and challenges facing the flooring community's thought leaders and creatives. Tanja has been writing about business, design, and lifestyle for two decades, and her work has appeared in publications such as American Way, Better Homes & Gardens, Fine Interiors, Fodor's, Food Channel, CA Modern, Chicago, Fine Interiors, and Los Angeles.