IIDA Leaders Breakfast (Leaders) is an annual international event series hosted by eight local IIDA chapters with the support of IIDA Headquarters, international benefactor MillerKnoll, and media partner Interior Design.

Leaders events celebrate design’s importance in the global marketplace by honoring the people who are both the legacy and future of design. Each event features a renowned keynote speaker who enlightens, provokes, and encourages new ideas, and a celebration recognizing one local Award of Excellence Honoree who has made significant contributions to the design industry.

About the Leaders Breakfast Award of Excellence

A Leaders Breakfast History

2024 Leaders Breakfast Series

Houston | August 16, 2024

Lauri Goodman Lampson is a business visionary who challenges founders and executives to rethink their approach to work and place. She is the mastermind behind the firm’s innovative business model and integrated approach to consulting, design, and brand services. Lauri frames business challenges as optimistic calls to action. Complacency is her nemesis, and she motivates organizations to move forward faster. She believes the wave of changes in technology, health and wellness, and the marketplace are undeniable. Organizations must restructure their fundamental approach to how they communicate their purpose, how they gather, and how they work.

New York | May 9, 2024

Cassi Chandler is an innovator, strategist, investigator, and leader who has broken barriers, led diverse teams, and built cultures of motivational leadership and inclusivity. In a career that has included many “firsts”, she served as the FBI’s first African American female special agent assistant director as well as the Bureau’s first female national spokesperson and director of public and community affairs. The founder, president, and CEO of Vigeo Alliance – a leadership and talent risk management partner helping organizations elevate their cultures of belonging. Chandler draws from her personal experiences leading diverse teams as a change agent in a broad range of fields to facilitate honest conversations on what can be achieved when organizations go “all in” on diversity.

The Leadership Award of Excellence

Presentation of the Leadership Award of Excellence is the signature activity at every Leaders event. This award recognizes an honoree, typically a member of the local design community, for their exemplary leadership within the profession of commercial interior design and architecture or a non-practitioner for outstanding contributions to the profession. Honorees are presented with the iconic Eames stool, customized in Leaders Breakfast red, to commemorate their achievements.

Honorees are selected for their achievements recognized by IIDA that have advanced the interior design profession, have a history of conscientious and ethical behavior with colleagues, clients, and others in business interactions, and have been recognized within their local professional design community. Honorees have a strong connection to IIDA and reinforce the Association’s significance in the design community.

History

Launched in New York in 1989 by Jeannie Bochette of Steelcase, the IIDA Leaders Breakfast series began as a single event. The goal was to introduce IIDA to the business world as a leading association of commercial interior design and to inform IIDA members about the major issues affecting them and the industry. The event established a forum where members and their clients could participate and network with their peers.

Since expanding to Toronto with the help of the Interior Designers of Canada (IDC) in 2007, and through the support of international benefactor MillerKnoll and media partner Interior Design, Leaders Breakfast has become an annual international event series that celebrates design's importance in the global marketplace.