gia 2022-2023—IHA Global Innovation Award Winners from 26 Countries Celebrated for Retail Excellence at the Inspired Home Show in March

Excellence in housewares retailing is an important focus at The Inspired Home Show 2023 in Chicago next month as the world’s most innovative and creative home and housewares retailers are honored at the annual IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) program.

The Inspired Home Show and the International Housewares Association (IHA), the global sponsors and organizers of the gia program, have announced the national gia winners for 2022-2023: 27 outstanding home and housewares retailers from 26 countries around the globe, including winners from totally new gia countries Azerbaijan and Kenya. View the national winners here.

The gia program was created by IHA and The Inspired Home Show to foster innovation and excellence in home and housewares retailing throughout the world. Since the launch of gia in 2000, there have been more than 500 gia retail award winners, from over 50 countries on six continents.

The 2022-2023 National gia Winners are:

Learn more and view photos of the gia competition winners!

The gia competition is structured on a two-tier level, national and global, to honor independent and multiple location home and housewares retailers for excellence in several business categories:

• Overall mission statement, vision and strategy
• Store design and layout
• Visual merchandising, displays and window displays
• Marketing, advertising and promotions
• Customer service and staff training
• Innovation

Each national gia winner is invited to The Inspired Home Show in Chicago, where the global gia jury, consisting of four experts representing Asia, Europe and the Americas, plus a rotating group of co-sponsoring trade publication editors from around the world, will select up to five gia Global Honorees and the winners of the Martin M. Pegler Award for Excellence in Visual Merchandising and the gia Digital Commerce Award for Excellence in Online Retailing.

On Saturday, March 4, the national winners will be honored at a festive awards dinner where the gia Global Honorees and winners of the Martin M. Pegler and gia Digital Commerce Award will be announced. In addition, the national winners are featured at the Show, with banners and a special display in the Grand Concourse Walkway at McCormick Place.

gia is more than an awards program. Representing retailing excellence around the world, it is part of a larger education initiative that includes seminars by retail experts, columns in international housewares publications and educational sessions at events in sponsors’ home countries.

As part of gia’s educational offering, on Monday, March 6, the three of the gia Expert Jurors, Wolfgang Gruschwitz, Scott Kohno, and Henrik Peter Reisby Nielsen will present a special session in the Show’s Innovation Theater:

New Opportunities to Connect with Customers
Retail is not dead… mediocre retail is dead. How to create successful customer experiences. Customers have NOT cancelled retail. What customers are looking for today. The gia Expert Jurors Wolfgang Gruschwitz, Scott Kohno and Henrik Peter Reisby Nielsen report from their experiences and share new ideas around the world of retail concepts.

About the gia Expert Jurors

Wolfgang Gruschwitz

With a strong background and expertise in retail architecture and design, Wolfgang Gruschwitz leads his own company, Gruschwitz GmbH, with its head office in Munich. Gruschwitz is a design and realization office for customer-oriented spaces, including retail, food, co-working and co-living spaces. In 2005, Gruschwitz got its first international recognition with the Brand World in Munich’s Allianz Arena Soccer Stadium. PUMA, Burberry, ZARA, Jaguar/Land Rover, Balenciaga and Superdry belong, among many others, to Gruschwitz customers. In addition, Gruschwitz has redesigned the Duty Free-shop at the Munich Airport. Starting in 2016, Gruschwitz along with Waketo GmbH have provided tailored consulting services for digital retail, e-commerce strategies, and content marketing.

Gruschwitz has been a member of the gia Expert Jury since 2003.

Scott Kohno
Scott Kohno is a retail executive and has developed several hundred million square feet of retail projects worldwide, in every continent from Asia to South America and from Australia to Europe. With projects in over 20 countries, Kohno’s perspective is quite unique, and his passion for retail has been instrumental in the creation of groundbreaking concepts such as the NASDAQ Marketsite in Times Square in New York City.

 Recently, with his family, he co-founded EJL Entertainment – a creative food, retail and delivery concept – bringing the “Wow” experience to customers with brands such as Sushi With Attitude. This concept started during the pandemic and has grown exponentially in two years, from a staff of four to a current staff of 80 in Los Angeles, Calif.

 As a respected expert in the retail field, Kohno has addressed conferences worldwide, including the National Retail Federation and The Asian Retailers Conference. He has been a featured expert in USA Today, INC magazine and Forbes magazine.

Kohno has been a member of the gia Expert Jury since 2005.

Henrik Peter Reisby Nielsen
Henrik is the CEO and Founder of Reisby Consult – a consulting company with a strong focus on creating and delivering consumer centric solutions for the digital future.

Reisby Nielsen combines old school virtues with new technologies and services. He has aided and created innovative and digital solutions for cities, retail chains and large international corporations such as AIG and Mastercard, and he is a popular international keynote speaker at trade shows around the world. 

Reisby Nielsen formerly owned H.P. Nielsen, a home and housewares store in Denmark, running the family store in its 4th generation. In 2007, H.P. Nielsen won the gia Global Honoree Award.

Reisby Nielsen has been a member of the gia Expert Jury since 2010.

Anne Kong
Anne Kong is an educator and designer specializing in Visual Merchandising, Exhibition Design and Brand Activation. With over 20 years of experience, she develops design concepts and solutions for retail, showrooms, trade shows and promotional events. Along with Martin M. Pegler, Kong co-authored the 7th edition of Visual Merchandising and Display for Bloomsbury Publishing.

As professor and program coordinator for the Spatial Experience Design Program at Fashion Institute of Technology, she is best known for innovating professional collaborations between retailers and brands to enhance the classroom experience.

Kong is a partner in A+D Kong, her design company that she shares with her husband, David Kong. Together they work with many clients to produce installations and product prototypes. She’s been recognized as a Design Influencer and Markopoulos Award winner. Kong currently serves as an advisory member for PAVE Global, innovating opportunities for design students nationally.

Kong has been a member of the gia expert jury since 2017.