HIGH POINT — The National Home Furnishings Assn. and the American Home Furnishings Alliance will

host a three-day Strategic Leadership Symposium in Florida in April.

The program is structured to serve retailers with annual sales of $30 million or more, and sales and marketing executives of manufacturing companies.

The event continues an educational initiative started by the two trade associations when they hosted an All-Industry Convention in Florida last year. Citifinancial Retail Services is co-sponsoring the upcoming symposium, set for April 25-27 at the Boca Raton Resort and Golf Club in Boca Raton, Fla.

Jim Carroll, author of books on creativity and innovation for business audiences, will be the keynote speaker at the opening session, examining “global economic trends and rapid market changes that dictate hyper-innovation to maintain and accelerate productivity,” according to the associations.

Another management expert and author, Oren Harari, will be the closing keynote speaker with a talk entitled, “Break from the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Economy.”

Other speakers include:

+ Bob George of Impact Consulting, who has counseled manufacturers and marketers of consumer products on strategies to achieve success and high performance, on “Strategic Considerations Going Forward.”

+ Lee Brown, a senior consultant at Impact Consulting, who has worked with home furnishings manufacturers and retailers on segmentation of their consumers and has been extensively involved in consumer research, on “Consumer Expectations Shift.”

+ Martin Roberts, president of retail and product design firm Grid2, on “Power Branding: Retail DNA to Target Customers.”

+ Joseph Wexler, who helped create a Six Sigma Total Quality Management System involving more than 5,000 participants in three years at Dell, on “Six Sigma Methodology: The Roadmap and Tools.”

Information on the symposium and a brochure with details are available by calling the NHFA’s Education Department at (800) 888-9590, ext. 6169.