Innovation & Job News

Laura Lee Williams, the CEO of Laura Lee Designs (LLD), the Vienna, Va.–based beaded handbag company, was recently inaugurated into the exclusive networking cohort of MindShare. Williams is one of only six women to be tapped for this year’s class.

Williams hopes that her inclusion in MindShare will allow her to "learn and gain from others' experiences and see how to handle 'challenges' that I will no doubt encounter."

LLD products are garnering international attention. “Everyone has Prada, Gucci, and Louis [Vuitton],” she explains. “People base who they are on a name, not on who they actually are.” The coloful handbags are designed to allow women to make a statement.

Though she created the first template for the bag, Williams quickly explains that she is not a designer. She comes from a marketing background, having spent her professional life at Nike, Apple, American Express, Ralph Lauren, and Pacific Century Cyberworks (PCCW) in Hong Kong.

LLD has three lines—a bridal line, a luxury line (for cocktail parties and swankier affairs), and a collegiate line called Sparkle U. For every Sparkle U bag sold, LLD donates 10 percent of the proceeds back to the affiliated school for scholarships. “I want to pay it forward,” Williams says. She has also created two “cause bags,” for breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, “for causes that mean something to me,” she explains. Ten percent of the proceeds from the sales of these bags are donated to the Estee Lauder Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) and the Alzheimer’s Association, respectively.

According to Williams, LLD bags are popular in the South, Florida, D.C., and in Northern California, as well as in Japan. Still, she plans to grow the company.

That growth could take several forms. Williams is hoping to add 125 more universities to the Sparkle U line by next year. She also has “lofty” goals of partnering with the NBA or the NFL to offer themed handbags for fans. And she’s planning to put out a catalog in the fall.