The New Carpet And Rug Institute

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

Folks we think going forward may have a hard time reconciling what the Carpet and Rug Institute used to do and who they actually serve right now. A couple of wags told us that there had been a mass exodus at the CRI of late- some going as far as telling us that as many as 20 employees have left in the last few months.

As we hate talking on the phone yet wanted to get to the truth behind these rumours we asked our North American editor to ring VP of Retail Experience Strategy Laura Davis-Taylor and get the low down.

First of, Laura says that CRI is going great guns. She’s loves her new boss “An amazing person with a great vision” – that will of course be Paul Price, CEO, an Aussie who was formerly global president of Omnicom’s RAPP.

Laura says that he has great vision and has tweeked the focus of the company somewhat, so she says any rumours are probably from a few old guard who didn’t like the changes.

CRI’s vision we are told is now based on “Creative Experiences: Bridging virtiual digitlal experienves in the physical world”

CRI still have a staff of 40 to 50 in New Jersey, 20 in New York, 5 in Atlanta, and another 5 to 10 scattered around the US.

Roger Saunt is moving from the London office (UK) to take over the New Jersey office, and they’ll soon be naming a big player to take over the London office in his place – we did’t even know that Roger Saunt had been announced as Managing Director – Europe at Creative Realities, Inc. a position that according to his LinkedIn profile he has held since April 2010 – a position he would have taken over from the famed Mike Fabian.

Finally we asked Laura if they still retained any business with Lowes and she told us that the “Lowes account went in-house last year but relations are good” and made mention of a recently installed interactive touch screen for renewable energy.


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