Balancing excellence in work and community giving,
Leila Douglah uses life experience to thrive
By Lou Fancher
Half a lifetime ago, Leila Douglah was a resourceful 24-year-old college graduate who escaped Baghdad, Iraq and found herself fortunate enough to land in Lafayette. On Friday, Jan. 30 at the Lafayette Park Hotel & Spa, Douglah will be honored as the city's 2015 Marquis Business Person of the Year. Opening Douglah Design in 1997, the 48-year-old business owner has led her luxury interior design and remodeling firm to consistent success -- and thrived well enough to recently open a second retail location in Lafayette. The majestic leap from a dead-end situation to a life of opportunity bears the dramatic components of great cinema -- danger, luck, action, effort, determination and an ending rich with hopefulness. Douglah's childhood days in Madison, Wis. were interrupted at age 3, when her professor father accepted a teaching position in Nigeria. After a short stint back in the United States, her family moved to Baghdad, where Douglah spent 16 years and learned that her prospects as a young woman with a degree in architecture from the University of Technology in Baghdad and her dual United States-Iraq citizenship were no guarantees of a good life. "In the 70s, shortly after we went to Baghdad, my father was told we had to become Iraqi citizens," Douglah said. "When the war broke out with Iran, the borders were shut and we got stuck in the country. It was very risky to get out; you would get executed if you got caught leaving as an American citizen." During a nine-month period after the Iraq-Iran war ended, the borders opened and Douglah was able to depart from a country she said was "so male-dominated there were only obstacles" for women. "When I had the opportunity to come to this country, I was bursting at the seams," Leila Douglah, owner of Douglah Designs in Lafayette, photographed in Lafayette, Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015, was named the 2015 Lafayette Douglah recalled. As a business person, a devotion to clients' "wow" experience drives Douglah and her staff to thrive. "How do we succeed in Lafayette? It's reputation," she said. "We retain clients with repeat and referral business. We don't have a magic concoction, other than a beautiful showroom; it's the practices we've instilled in our business model." The practices require being a chameleon, Douglah said. If a kitchen design is created for a chef, function outweighs form. If a kitchen is a casual cook's sanctuary, form outweighs function. "But I emphasize that we should look at form and function," Douglah said. "I never want (a room) to be utilitarian without being a beautiful space as well." Thriving in a competitive marketplace means tracking trends, and two years ago, noticing a shift as young homeowners became do-it-yourselfers, Douglah Design moved into a new, larger retail showroom in La Fiesta Square, just steps away from the design offices they retain. She said the new space carries products that allow clients to disengage from the full design process. Page 1 of 2 Jan 23, 2015 11:04:00AM MST -httpF:/i/ewswtwa.inSsqiduebaaryea,rejua.scotms/tNeepwss/aciw_2a7y37f2ro83m3/Lthafeaydetetes:-iBganlaoncffinicge-esxctehllenycere-inta-winor.kS-ahnde-csoamimdutnhitey-gniveinwg-sLepilac-Deoucgalarhr-iueses-life-experience-to products that allow clients to disengage from the full design process. "We traditionally do design, materials, construction," Douglah explained. "This pulls the middle section out (and offers) unique products for people who want to do the job themselves." Lafayette Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jay Lifson said Douglah was an integral part of the city's overall stability during economic downturns in 2007 and 2011. "When the economy started to come back, Lafayette was in a position to thrive. Leila was part of the leadership that helped keep our local economy moving." Selected as "marquis" businessperson as much for her considerable giving back to the community as for her business acumen, Douglah said nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Shelter, Inc. are closest to her heart. and participation allows her to put roofs over deserving people's heads. "It's a privilege to work with affluent people, but I want to help people who don't have that kind of income," she said. A fondness for "furry animal friends" and a belief that societal success is reliant on sturdy educational systems determines her other philanthropic focuses, the Lindsay Wildlife Museum and Lafayette Partners in Education. The Marquis Business Person of the Year Annual Dinner honoring Douglah includes the introduction to the chamber's 2015 board of directors and the State of the City address by Mayor Brandt Andersson. |