Page 12 - City of Hope HHI 2024 Spirit of Life Journal

JEFF LORBERBAUM
PRESIDENT, CEO
12 | CITY OF HOPE
Jeff Lorberbaum is chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Mohawk Industries, the world’s largest flooring manufacturer. Over the past 30 years, Mohawk has completed more than 50 acquisitions and built a world class management team that brings industry-leading innovation and value to the marketplace. Mohawk is a leading participant in every flooring product category, including ceramic tile, carpet, hardwood, vinyl, laminate, stone and rugs. Mohawk produces flooring in 18 countries, with a primary focus in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia Pacific.
In 1994, Lorberbaum’s family business, Aladdin Mills, merged with Mohawk Industries, and he was appointed president of the company the following year. During the 1990s, Lorberbaum engineered Mohawk’s consolidation of the carpet industry, the backward integration of its material production and the creation of a national logistics system that differentiated its service levels.
In 2001, Lorberbaum became CEO and broadened Mohawk’s strategy from a focus on carpet to becoming a comprehensive flooring company by providing hard surface products through Mohawk’s marketing and distribution structure. During the next decade, Mohawk extended its market position through a series of acquisitions in each of the major flooring categories and established the best known brands in the industry.
Concurrently, Lorberbaum expanded Mohawk’s geographicbasefromtheU.S.markettoaleading international position with sales in approximately 170 countries. During this time, the company developed
a unique expertise entering new markets. Since the company’s initial public offering in 1992, Mohawk’s enterprisevaluehasincreasedmorethan50times.The company is a fixture on the Fortune 500, the S&P 500 and has been ranked as one of Forbes’ Best Employers.
Lorberbaum’s commitment to his thousands of employees includes the implementation of Healthy Life Centers that provide accessibility to low-cost care for acute illness or chronic conditions for employees, spouses and dependent children. Under Lorberbaum’s leadership, Mohawk has expanded its environmental strategies to produce thousands of products with recycled content, create green energy sources and radically reduce the company’s carbon footprint.
For his industry leadership and philanthropy, Lorberbaum received Floor Covering News’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, Ernst and Young’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Entrepreneurship (SE Region) and the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Most Admired CEO Award (Manufacturing) in 2016 and the President of Italy’s Leonardo International Prize in 2017. Lorberbaum was inducted into the World Floor Covering Association’s Hall of Fame in 2017. On June 6, 2022, Lorberbaum was appointed an honorary knight commander in the Order of the Crown in an investiture ceremony presided over by her Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Belgium.
Lorberbaum and his family have provided significant support to many local, regional and national charities.