Leslie Carothers (known on Twitter as @tkpleslie) is the founder and CEO of The Kaleidoscope Partnership , an 11 year old international social media agency for furniture and interior design brands. Leslie has over 31 years of experience in the furniture and design industry and spent the first 20 years of her career as an interior designer. Some of her past social media clients have included Cargill Corporation’s BioH Polyols division, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, World Market Center Las Vegas, The New Traditionalists, Better Homes and Gardens magazine and current clients include the corporate headquarters of The Curtain Exchange – a national luxury window treatment franchise and Olioboard –a fast growing global social commerce site with 2D and 3D visualization tools. She micro-blogs as @tkpleslie and founded the Twitter chat, #GetPublished which brings together design editors, authors and the design community to create dialogue and opportunities. For the past 11 years , she has been a frequent national and international speaker at major furniture and design industry trade shows and events and keynoted the first Social Media Symposium held at High Point University.
She’s been widely interviewed and is also a guest author for many industry publications including Furniture Today magazine, Retailer NOW magazine and for the past 9 years has been the writer of the *Retail Ideas* blog for Furniture Today.com –publishers of the leading international furniture industry trade news magazine.
Leslie served a 3 year term as a volunteer on the board of Women In The Home Industries –WITHIT – where she twice chaired the major yearly fundraiser –WITHIT’s Leadership Development Conference – and served as VP of National Membership.
In 2009, Leslie was awarded WITHIT’s President’s Award for her service to the organization and to the furniture and interior design industry.