Caroline Groeneveld
Caroline Groeneveld is the Founder and Creative Director of North of Grey, a luxury accessories brand known for its architecturally inspired handbags and small leather goods designed for high-performing women. Based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, she brings more than two decades of design experience and a meticulous attention to detail to every piece she creates. Her work blends functional design with refined craftsmanship, resulting in products that reflect both elegance and practicality.
Before launching North of Grey, Caroline built a successful career in interior design as the founder of Caroline Inc., where she spent over 16 years designing residential and commercial spaces throughout the Detroit metropolitan area. Her work included everything from conceptual design and space planning to custom furniture design, construction documentation, and project coordination. Known for creating crisp, innovative, and highly functional environments, she developed a reputation for delivering thoughtful spaces that exceeded client expectations.
Caroline earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design from the College for Creative Studies and holds certification from the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ). Today, she continues to channel her architectural design background into product development, overseeing every aspect of the North of Grey brand—from design and sourcing to creative direction and brand strategy. Through her work, Caroline remains committed to building a globally recognized luxury brand while continuing to bring thoughtful, design-driven solutions to her clients and customers.
• NCIDQ Certified 2005
• Certified Interior Designer
• College for Creative Studies
• American Society of Interior Design
• Variety
• The Children's Charity
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to persistence, tenacity, and faith. It's about not giving up and knowing that you're not on your own time - you're on God's timing. When things happen, it's all in His time, and sometimes you don't like that. But then you look back and think, that was perfect timing. That was why that didn't happen right then. I couldn't have done it then, or I couldn't have given it my all right then, or I wasn't ready for that, even though you think you are. I think just trusting in the process has been a big lesson for me - being patient and trusting that there's a process to this, and there's time into this, and being patient, and not stopping, and just keep chewing a little bit off each day. Just keep moving. Just keep going forward.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge I've faced is that I underestimated the power of marketing and social media. When I started this brand, Instagram and TikTok were all coming about, and being at the age I'm at, I didn't realize the power of that. I didn't realize that you did need to get involved with social media, and it wasn't a choice. I thought it was a choice, and I thought that I didn't have to do social media or have an Instagram account. But after realizing that when you're trying to get into boutiques and stores, they're all going to go and get onto your Instagram page and see how many followers you have. Building a social media presence is hard enough in itself - that's a full-time job without everything else that you're trying to accomplish. As a designer, you think you've got to design the nicest handbag, get the best fabrics, the nicest website, the best photographer, and all of that, and then you think, no one knows where it is or knows about it. So the most important thing is marketing. You set up your website and put it on the web, and then nothing happens if no one knows about it. When you're one person trying to do all of that - designing bags, the photography, the website - it's a big mountain to climb.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
God is first, and then family. And then happiness - being happy. That's first and foremost to me. I believe you've got to work doing something you love, if you can, if you've been gifted with doing something that you love. It's about honesty and integrity with clients and customers, and delivering the best product that I can give to my clients - a well-thought-out design that I think will really help women in their day-to-day lives with organization. That's where North of Grey was born. It was a mother with triplets trying to do the mother stuff during the day and then go out on date night with my husband once a week, and you need to be able to switch your bags seamlessly and find your lipstick and everything you need.