Joan Lagrasse

Joan LaGrasse held a number of positions early in her career: realtor and teacher, standards development and consultant, and others. In 2002 she found a new passion as an entrepreneur, and the owner and CEO of Imagen. Imagen is a full service exhibit house and more. As it happens with many companies, downturns became opportunities and opportunities became new business lines. Today, imagen creates and manages corporate events and meetings, designs and creates beautiful branded interiors for companies, and fabricates and installs interior cabinetry, millwork, signage, wall coverings and other interior finishing for new buildings. This in addition to trade show exhibits and management and museum exhibits.

In 2016, Joan was named Star by WBENC. That year she created her most well known exhibit: one honoring women, some of them unknown or forgotten, who opened doors for other women. It was showcased at the WBENC Business Fair. Imagen has won numerous awards for its cestive, meticulously executed exhibits, from best in show to top diverse supplier awards.

This past spring, Sharon Reynolds and Joan co-founded The Collaborative: workplace readiness solutions. In addition to providing PPE and other essential products such as protective barriers, cleaning supplies, emergency hospital rooms, this initiative brought together several business leaders and their companies to serve the corporate and nonprofit communities, all under one umbrella.

Joan serves on several charitable advisory boards including Volunteers of America, and Go for the Greens, and on several boards of directors including WBEC South and WBENC. She serves on the Forum Leadership Team for WBENC Forum as well. Joan is a founding member of the Nashville WBC where she serves as co leader.

In 2020, she was nominated to the WBE Hall of Fame, and will be inducted this spring.