By Karina Timmel
Job: Director of Trend and Design at The Home Depot
Born in: Richmond, Virginia
Lives in: Vinings
Sarah Fishburne interprets and delivers on people’s home-improvement dreams for a living. “It gives me great joy to help create affordable designs for all to enjoy,” she says of her gig at The Home Depot, where she scours the globe for top trends in home décor in order to develop products for the big-box’s 2,250-plus retail stores.
Her typical day is anything but typical—at any given time, the interior designer could work on special-order cabinets, attend a meeting about door chimes, sit in on a TV commercial debrief, write a trend overview or weigh in on outdoor fabrics. She also travels constantly and reports that Paris is particularly inspiring with its architecture, fashion and colors in store display windows.
“I actually created a paint palette for The Home Depot inspired by my time in Paris (Walk on the Seine – 2009),” she says. Her decorating talent blossomed early in her childhood. Fishburne’s father worked for Eastman Kodak and her family lived in Tokyo and Rochester, New York, before coming to Atlanta, and so, as a kid, she spent a lot of time sketching her new room designs and color schemes. To date, Fishburne has won three Pillars of the Industry Awards and one Obie Award. In her downtime between trips, you can find her doing Pilates or repurposing furniture.
Her Biggest Life Lesson:
“Always be your own biggest supporter—you have to believe in yourself for others to believe in you.”
