About the founder

FloristFacts.org was founded by James Dempsey, AIFD, CFD, who has spent more than forty years in the floral industry at nearly every level of it. He has worked as a retail florist, beginning in 1982; in wholesale; in event floristry; in multi-location management; in corporate floral category management; and inside mass-market floral programs. He now owns an independent floral studio in upstate New York. A fuller account of that history is on his LinkedIn profile.

That range is unusual. Most people in the trade come to know one corner of it well; Dempsey has worked the independent shop and the corporate program, the design bench and the management office. That vantage is what FloristFacts is built on. It is what lets the platform explain, without romance, how the industry has changed and why the difference between professional design and commodity assembly has become so hard for a buyer to see.

Dempsey is a member of the American Institute of Floral Designers (AIFD) and a Certified Floral Designer (CFD). He does not use FloristFacts to promote his own business, and no florist, himself included, can pay to be featured in it. How the platform is funded is explained in How FloristFacts is funded.