Meet the Woman Behind Wayfair's Celebrate Black Makers: Shardé Marchewiski

Shardé Marchewiski is a senior-level business professional at Wayfair, a Fortune 500 company, and the woman behind Celebrate Black Makers, Wayfair's movement to support Black makers and designers in the home industry. In a LinkedIn post, she announced the reveal of Celebrate Black Makers and expressed her pride in helping to make more room at the table for suppliers that look like her.

Shardé has had a personal vision of serving as a champion for underrepresented communities for as long as she can remember. Whether it's serving as a mentor, volunteering her time, or leading resource groups, she believes in creating opportunities for underrepresented groups. It wasn't until recently that she finally mustered the courage to pursue championing underrepresented groups as her career.

At present, Shardé leads the Supplier Diversity group at Wayfair, which is focused on ensuring Wayfair's commercial strategy is inclusive of diverse stakeholders. Her team's mission is to understand the company's go-forward plan, shed light on initiatives that may exclude underrepresented stakeholders, and create strategies to ensure those stakeholders are included.

While in this role, Shardé has established the Supplier Diversity Support Program, an internal program centered around removing roadblocks that have hindered the success of underrepresented suppliers on the platform. She also spearheaded the launch of Celebrate Black Makers, the consumer-facing campaign to increase the visibility of Black-owned products to Wayfair customers, as well as general awareness of Wayfair's support of Black-Owned suppliers and designers.

Shardé is passionate about initiatives where impact and revenue-driving opportunities intersect. She views herself as a person who creates commercial strategies and not as a DEI professional. However, over the past year, she has realized that she can combine both. Throughout her years at Wayfair, she has had the amazing opportunity to sit at tables with suppliers and teammates to set growth plans that were expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, she's proud to help make more room at the table for suppliers that look like her.

Shardé is a Spelman College economics graduate and holds an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. Although she does not view herself as a DE&I specialist, she will forever be a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion. While at Wayfair, she established an HBCU recruiting pipeline, created a program to ensure Black employees received fair performance reviews and mentored many diverse employees across the organization. She was one of five employees who received the Wayfair Annual Award in 2021 and was recognized as a "Community Builder." Shardé is also an active member of the Wayfair Impact Council and Wayfair DEI Council.

Shardé Marchewiski is a remarkable woman who has made significant contributions to Wayfair's mission of helping everyone, anywhere have the feeling of home. Her passion for initiatives where impact and revenue-driving opportunities intersect has led to the establishment of the Supplier Diversity Support Program and the launch of Celebrate Black Makers. She is a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and her work has had a positive impact on Wayfair's employees, customers, and suppliers.