Lumens CEO Laura Walsh talks high design | Portrait

Laura Walsh is the CEO of Lumens. Since April 2021, Lumens has been a part of Flos B&B Italia Group, a European high-end design company that encompasses several luxury brands, Louis Poulsen, Arclinea and Audo Copenhagen among them. In September, Lumens celebrated its two decades as a champion of iconic design with an Instagram Live party attended by some of the biggest brands and designers in lighting and home furnishings. Walsh, who has an MBA in finance and marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and whose career includes executive-level positions at various investment companies, spoke with Home Accents Today about the role of high design in lighting, her growth strategy for Lumens, and what’s on her reading list.

Two years ago, YLighting was absorbed into the Lumens brand, and Lumens launched a new brand identity. What do you want your wholesale, interior design and consumer audience to know about Lumens?

Throughout the company’s history, our core guiding light has been our belief in good design. That stays constant for us. What we want our customers to know, whether they are architects or designers or design savvy consumers, is when they think of design, we want them to automatically think of Lumens.

After being acquired by FLOS, we stepped back [and looked at all our brands]. Lumens and Ylighting were very similar. It took a lot of effort to run them separately, we’re much stronger together. It was surprising, even to me, that we lost zero revenue during the transition. We brought all YLighting customers over to Lumens.

What role does high design play in the lighting world right now?

What we are seeing from consumers and designers is a focus on lighting as a statement piece — what sets a room apart. Consumers and architects and designers are looking for that special piece. We scour the world to look for these special pieces, these designers, these brands, and bring them to one place — Lumens — for our customers to shop. That includes a ready-made piece as well as custom pieces — we’re seeing real demand for that.

In September, Lumens celebrated its 20^th anniversary with an Instagram Live party. Tell me about the event and the public response to it.

We’ve been celebrating our 20^th anniversary for a few months now. It’s been the big theme of the year. It all culminated in the Instagram Live party. We really wanted to bring our most important partners together to share stories from the early days of Lumens. Lee Broom, Bret Englander from Cerno, Dan Rubenstein from the Grand Tourist, one of our media partners, Amelie du Passage of Petite Friture and John Edelman of Heller [were among those who participated]. We had a great response. We had 10,000 people join us, which bypassed all our expectations for it.

You’ve also gotten lots of congratulatory notes on your anniversary, and appropriately, created a lighting pendant from them. What was the origin of that idea?

We batted around a lot of ideas for how to celebrate. We wanted to do something special, something to show how passionate we are about design. The Zettel’z chandelier from Ingo Maurer has a motto: “This lamp requires a co-designer.” We love that. We had this great idea of collaborating with our [designers and manufacturers] to create a birthday card. We asked our partners to write birthday notes. We were completely stunned by the response. People spent so much time and craft putting these things together. It is the centerpiece of our 20^th anniversary campaign.

How do you break down your business between wholesale and direct-to-consumer?

It’s 50% B2B and 50% direct to consumer. Our website is the main channel for both groups. We have a large sales team, including more than 50 sales team members that support the architecture and design community. We still produce a print catalog; there are five or six drops a year. It’s a big way of reaching people, a lot of people know us for that. It’s a very important channel for us.

Lumens is lighting first, but we have also expanded into furniture and home décor. The A&D community responded well to that — we’re a one-stop shop for their needs. We have lighting, furniture, home décor and accessories. Furniture is the fastest growing by far. It’s small today but growing really fast. In the future, we see a world where Lumens is 50% lighting and 50% home décor.

Have you ever contemplated opening a store?

Yes, we have one coming in the middle of next year. We will always be an online-first company; however, we do recognize that there is something different about seeing product in person, and the importance of having events in person. We are opening in San Francisco first, targeted at architects and designers. It will be both a showroom with a rotating gallery as well as some office space for employees.

When you get together with others in the industry these days, what is the key topic of discussion?

One topic that always comes up is sustainability. I think we’re seeing a huge shift — more so in commercial projects, but consumers are catching up as well and want more sustainable solutions for their home.

Our part in this is that we’ve taken over 40,000 products on our website and tagged them with their sustainability standards (for example, Greenguard-certified). You can filter and shop to find a sustainable option.

How would you describe your management style? Has it changed over the years?

It’s changed quite a bit. I started my career at a company that was very male dominated. You were expected to be very aggressive, very assertive. I got a lot of feedback to be more assertive, louder, pound my fists on the table, that sort of thing. I struggled with that; it didn’t work for me. I wondered, is that what it takes to be a leader?

Fortunately, after business school I went to work for a company with a dramatically different viewpoint — that leaders come in all different styles. You were supposed to find your unique style. They gave me a lot of exposure and training and helped me develop my own style.

I show up as a listener first. I don’t come into a situation with an answer. I think it is my responsibility to listen to my employees and my customers and piece together all those viewpoints to find an answer. I like to harness the power of the team around me.

What’s one work task you wish you had more time for?

The shows. Going to a show is the most inspiring part of my job — I love seeing new products, talking to the designers, hearing their stories, thinking about how we bring those stories to life online. I only get to do that a few weeks a year and wish I could do that more.

Name one new thing you’ve done or tried lately.

I recently joined a ladies golf league which I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I golfed with my dad when I was a kid, but I hadn’t golfed in many years. To me it’s a wonderful time to shut everything else out and be outside with a bunch of ladies. It’s a happy new addition to my life.

Just for fun:

First job? I sold men’s clothing in a department store. I quickly learned the power of confidence to make a decision.

Least favorite household task? If you asked my husband, he would say I can’t pay a bill for the life of me. I’m lucky to be married to someone who is very meticulous and organized.

What team do you route for? I am a diehard Green Bay Packers fan. I grew up in Wisconsin. We live and die by the Green Bay Packers.

What are you reading? I read anything and everything, fiction, non-fiction. My Kindle is my most prized possession. I recently read The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni. It’s a unique take on personality types, the six things that need to happen for work to get done. Some are strengths and some are not. I’ve taken that back to my team and we’ve discussed how to leverage that.