Nelli Garibyan

When Nelli Garibyan’s father asked her to help him open an art gallery, she had no background in art, no experience in curation and no particular reason to say yes beyond love for her father and confidence in her own instincts.
She said yes anyway.
Four years later, Idaho Art Gallery, with a location in Boise and one in Meridian, has grown into two of the state’s premier fine art exhibition spaces, representing more than 20 local and national artists. Garibyan, 38, co-owns and curates both locations alongside her father, a career artist who spent decades creating work and finally had someone in his corner who could build the business around it.
“My dad and I started our first gallery four years ago and it has blossomed into the amazing journey we are on today,” she said.
The gallery is, in many ways, the latest chapter in a career defined by a willingness to step into unfamiliar industries and figure it out. Garibyan graduated from Boise State University with a marketing degree in 2008 and spent several years in advertising sales before pivoting to business ownership. She bought and ran The Groutsmith, a tile and grout restoration franchise, from 2013 to 2018, then operated N-Hance Wood Refinishing from 2017 to 2021. Both were sold successfully. In 2022, she launched Advisory Marketing, LLC, a consulting firm that now works with multibillion-dollar companies on marketing strategy. That same year, she opened Idaho Art Gallery’s first location.
Running parallel enterprises across wildly different industries is, she says, less contradictory than it sounds.
“I feel I stand out for blending creative intuition with real-world business experience, allowing me to approach business with both heart and strategy,” she said. “I think like an entrepreneur, building sustainable systems, clear messaging, and practical paths that help creative work thrive in the real marketplace.”
That philosophy has produced tangible results in the arts community. Garibyan co-created and publishes the Art Guide of Ada County, an annual resource connecting residents and visitors with the region’s galleries, artists and events. She also organizes Art for a Cause, an annual charity event that directs proceeds to a different nonprofit each year. The combination of visibility tools and fundraising has helped establish the gallery as a civic institution, not just a retail space.
In 2023, she joined the board of the Nampa Family Justice Center, where she serves as vice president, a role that reflects a broader commitment to community infrastructure she has built alongside her businesses.
The biggest professional evolution for Garibyan has been internal. As a serial entrepreneur who launched each venture largely on her own, she spent years trying to do everything herself, a habit she eventually recognized as a ceiling rather than a strength.
“As an entrepreneur, especially in the early days, I wore every hat, which isn’t sustainable and can limit growth,” she said. “By hiring the right people and empowering them, I’ve been able to grow multiple businesses while maintaining quality and vision. That shift has been one of the most impactful lessons in my career.”
It is a lesson that tracks with her broader philosophy that creativity and strategy are most powerful when they work together, and that strong ideas require clear systems and disciplined execution to survive in the real world.
Garibyan describes her influences not as a single mentor but as a collection of people who shaped her at different stages; colleagues, advisors and the artists she now represents, each contributing something the others could not. That openness to being changed by the people around her may be the most consistent thread across an otherwise varied career.
She is already writing what comes next. The gallery continues to grow and the consulting practice keeps expanding.