Revitalizing Durham | Wendy Clark

Businesses Doing Good

Our guest on the October 18th Conference Call is Wendy Clark. The topic is "Revitalizing Durham."

We're pleased to have Wendy Clark with us as our guest for this edition of Businesses Doing Good. Wendy Clark is a dedicated entrepreneur who started her first business at the age of 20 with less than $100. Almost twenty-five years later, that business—Carpe Diem Cleaning—is still thriving, with 35+ employees serving 500 clients to bring in over $1 million in annual revenue. Carpe Diem is now the largest locally-owned residential cleaning service in the Triangle area.

Wendy believes in the potential for businesses to create equitable solutions for issues in the community and raise the quality of life for everyone. Through her management of Carpe Diem as well as her role as Vice President of DeWhit Facility Services—a commercial cleaning service with close to 100 employees—Wendy has proven that a community-focused mindset is not limited to small businesses.

This outlook inspired Wendy to purchase the historic John O’Daniel Exchange building in Northeast Central Durham in 2007. She transformed the blighted warehouse into a beautiful and affordable community-oriented space that is now home to the offices of several businesses and non-profits. In 2017 Wendy invested in remodeling the Exchange building’s event space into a charming venue managed under her latest venture, The Wedding Exchange.

As Wendy continues her journey, her focus is on fostering her employees' growth to strengthen the success of her businesses. She is currently developing a training curriculum designed to help leaders achieve their full potential by unlocking the skillsets of prioritization and communication.

“The keys to my success have truly been proactive goal setting and my strategies for decision making. At its heart, goal setting is really about discovering who we were created to be. Each and every one of us was brought into this world to express something unique, and goal setting enables us to unlock those works which we were created to do. I am grateful to continue to be a positive part of the thriving entrepreneurial community in Durham.”