Designer will draw on past to shape future.

• Author: Roush, Chris
• Position: PEOPLE

Nancy Webster might be the most influential home-design diva you've never heard of. Last year, HFN, a trade publication, ranked her the third-most-powerful person in home fashion and design, behind French designer Philippe Starck and Martha Stewart. Webster, 52, headed the design team of discount retailer Target for much of the past two years.

In September, she became CEO of Thomasville Furniture and possibly the first woman to run a large furniture maker, says the trade publication Furniture Today. She plans to change its direction by targeting people younger than 40 while keeping its baby boomer base. "There is a tremendous amount of buying power in the young consumer that we have an opportunity to focus on."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Webster started her education in home fashion and design early--at home. Born near Burlington, she grew up on a 150-acre farm in Orange County. Her mother designed products for White Furniture and children's clothing maker Peaches 'n Cream, now-defunct companies based in Mebane. Through an exchange program at N.C. State University, Webster got an associate degree in fashion design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in 1974. She got a bachelor's in textile technology from State in 1975. After graduation, she designed upholstery fabrics for Cannon Mills in Concord. A year later, Cannon sent her to New York to help design bedspreads for Sears.

She...