Top Women in Hardware & Building Supply

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At Lowe’s, a focus on diversity

Highlights from an interview with Margi Vagell.

By Ken Clark

While the home improvement industry has increased its number of women in leadership positions, one such leader sat down with HBSDealer to get a glimpse of her aspirations for the business. Margi Vagell is senior vice president of merchandising, home décor, with Lowe’s home improvement. Vagell shared her approach to career development in the hardware and building supply industry, and she gave us insight into how she reads a room.

“The spirit of diversity and culture is a constant conversation here in a great way,” Vagell said of the Mooresville, N.C.-based company, adding that the conversation begins with the company’s dedication to recruiting diverse talent and continues with its focus on retaining diverse leaders.

“Bringing different viewpoints to the table gives any company an advantage when tackling projects and challenges. The industry is rich with talent, and in the past two years under the leadership of our President and CEO, Marvin Ellison, we’ve made important progress in advancing inclusion and diversity within the company,” Vagell said. “Our strategy doesn’t stop at skin color or gender. It’s also understanding where it’s important to have diversity of experience, and then, also, understanding where it’s really important to have diversity in expertise.”

As one of the industry’s Top Women in Hardware & Building Supply, Vagell agrees with those who say if you focus on the short-term projects that build on themselves, then long-term success will take care of itself. That said, she also believes that proper investments have to be made in portions of the business to support long term growth.

Vagell’s career path included what she described as five lateral moves before a promotion to the vice president level. At each position, she said, she gained experience that prepared her for greater responsibility.

“Yes, I think it’s important to have career goals,” she explained. “However, I think it’s more important to have a goal and a target to be as successful as possible in your existing role.”

Vagell calls on the home improvement industry to better help both women and men balance the demands of business life and home life. “Gender equality goes beyond a paycheck,” Vagell said. “We need to hold all associates to the same standard of performance while also providing all associates the tools to succeed at both work and home life.”

It wasn’t easy at first, but Vagell has learned to accept and even embrace the idea that no one should apologize for seeking balance between one’s career and one’s family, home life or motherhood (Vagell has two young children). And that belief applies throughout the ranks. “If you have a happy home life and you feel that you’re contributing to the level that you should be contributing, it obviously makes for a more wellrounded and full person to come to work every day,” she said.

Vagell said leadership success requires understanding what makes colleagues tick. Rather than feeling a need to prove something upon walking into a room full of colleagues, Vagell recommends a different approach:

“It’s less about proving yourself and more about understanding who is in the room. And it’s less about you showing them what drives you. It’s about you figuring out what drives them. And so, you have to be really unselfish in order to figure out how best to work with a team and to achieve your team goals.

“At Lowe’s, we are dedicated to attracting a diverse team and associates,” Vagell said. “We recognize how important that is.”

Margi Vagell