ALA’s Women in Lighting (WIL) Committee is accepting nominations for the third annual Women in Leadership Award (WILLA) through Oct. 1. The 2020 Award will be presented to a deserving leader in the industry during January 2021 Lightovation in Dallas.
The annual Women in Lighting Leadership Award recognizes one individual for their role in at least two of the following activities within the past two years:
- Achievement/leadership in the lighting industry
- Support of ALA
- Mentoring of other women in the lighting industry
- Devotion to their community through philanthropy, volunteer work, or outstanding active support/participation
- The recipient must be a member of ALA, nominated by an ALA member, and voted upon by the WIL Committee.
Last year’s recipient of the WILLA was Jilla Farzan, executive vice president of Nora Lighting. Jilla, along with her husband, Fred, two daughters and one more on the way, immigrated to the United States in 1987 from Iran. Two years later, the couple started their company with Jilla leading the way, and together, the Farzans took Nora Lighting from a 900-square-foot building with two SKUs and two employees, to a company occupying more than 300,000 square feet of warehouse space across the country with over 50,000 SKUs and 150 employees.
The award’s first recipient was Norma Cooper, who founded Lighting Etc. in Fort Worth in the early 1980s and, with help from later generations of her family business, grew that retailer over the following decades before her passing in September 2018.
Nominations for the 2020 Women in Lighting Leadership Award will be accepted through Oct. 1, 2020. Visit www.lightingwomen.com to enter any deserving individual’s name before then.
For more information about Women in Lighting, visit www.lightingwomen.com.