Voices of Design Leadership. Ken Sanders
career was co-leading three separate classes of Gensler University (GU), the global design firm’s accelerated leadership development program. In addition to collaborative workshops, office visits, and virtual meetings, students of each class heard from influential speakers who included clients, consultants, educators, and researchers. Today, most of those GU graduates are leading Gensler offices or their own firms. Helping others achieve success has been central to my leadership roles at multiple design firms and served as a key motivation for writing this book.
Recent events provided additional encouragement. Here in the US, we are finally confronting the lingering discrimination in our society and our shared responsibility to address it. But the architecture profession has much more work to do. The nation’s largest minority-owned architecture firm, Moody Nolan, was appropriately recognized in 2021 by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) with the Architecture Firm Award. MASS Design Group, an innovative non-profit focused on serving the underserved, earned the same award in 2022. Of the ten firms recognized between 2011 and 2020, however, over two-thirds of the Principals still leading those firms are white men.
Today, it is more important than ever that we showcase and learn from design leaders who look like the world, and who bring diverse life experiences and cultural backgrounds to their work. Individually, each of the sixteen people interviewed for this book stands on their own as a successful and influential design leader. Collectively, they express what design leadership in our profession can and should look like.
Prior to Gensler, I worked at four other exceptional design firms. In chronological order, they are: EHDD; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; LPA; and ZGF Architects. Of the five firms including Gensler, four were honored by the AIA with the Architecture Firm Award. One of the four has earned the honor twice and the fifth has earned the AIA California Firm Award twice.
I mention these awards not to burnish my own reputation; in fact, I have joked with colleagues for years that all five firms earned them while I worked elsewhere. I mention them to highlight my good fortune. I have had the opportunity to collaborate with – and learn from – hundreds of talented design leaders over the past forty years.
During that time, I have observed the most effective way in which design leaders can share what they learn is through storytelling. Relatable stories are what young professionals most often remember and apply to their own careers, more than company policies, guidelines, or checklists. When they hear personal stories from a design leader who inspired a client, seized an opportunity, discovered a key insight, made a difficult decision, or creatively overcame an obstacle, they better retain and more effectively leverage the lessons and insights.
And that is why the sixteen individuals featured in Voices of Design Leadership speak in their own words and tell their own stories. My authorship role is not to represent their points of view with excerpts, but to engage in conversations that allow each person to express themselves in open dialogue.
The Voices
Among thousands of talented and influential design leaders around the world, how were these sixteen selected? In addition to demographic diversity, I sought to include a variety of leadership roles: architect, interior designer, research leader, urban designer, educator, sustainability advocate, and business executive. Some are founders or co-founders of their firms, while others are second, third, or fourth generation leaders.
The types of firms are diverse as well: for-profit, non-profit, single-discipline, multi-discipline, and client. They are engaged in a range of geographies, market sectors, and project types, and vary in size from less than 25 people to over 5,000. The two clients, Google and The Walt Disney Company, are substantially larger, with over 140,000 and 200,000 employees, respectively. The oldest design firm, Perkins&Will, was founded in 1935. MASS Design Group, the youngest, was incorporated in 2010.
The sixteen leaders are a blend of old friends and new. I began by reaching out to individuals who inspired me during my own professional journey.
Marsha Maytum, for example, I have known for over four decades. We met at EHDD in 1980, where I started my first job after graduating from UC Berkeley. Marsha made a lasting impression with her talent, generosity, and gracious personal style. Today she is a Principal at Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects.
I met Wendy Rogers in 1987 while I worked at LPA, when she joined the firm as a new graduate. Wendy has always been passionate, curious, and eager to embrace new opportunity, and her journey from intern to CEO at the same firm is an inspiring one.
Sharron van der Meulen and I worked together at ZGF’s office in Portland, Oregon, during the 1990s. In 2019, Sharron became one of the first women partners in ZGF’s eighty-year history. As her responsibilities expanded over the years, she always maintained her authentic leadership voice: smart, modest, funny, and optimistic.
Three design leaders I befriended during my seventeen years at Gensler. Andre Brumfield is a Principal and Cities & Urban Design Leader and currently serves on firm’s Board of Directors. Barbara Bouza was co-Managing Director of Gensler’s Los Angeles office and is now President, Walt Disney Imagineering, at The Walt Disney Company. I met Michelle Kaufmann while she worked at X, the research subsidiary of Google, and we collaborated on two projects for Google Real Estate and Workplace Services (REWS). Today, she is Head of R+D for the Built Environment at Google.
Phil Harrison and I became friends through our participation in the Design Futures Council, where we both serve as Senior Fellows. As CEO of Perkins&Will, Phil is a leader with contagious energy who has piloted the firm’s impressive growth for over two decades.
Prior to starting this book, I spoke to Rafael Viñoly just once in 2007. At the time, we were both working on the CityCenter development in Las Vegas for MGM Resorts International. How did we meet? After a full day of client meetings, I gave him a ride to the airport. Our brief but memorable conversation in transit – as well as his eponymous firm’s impressive portfolio of award-winning projects – encouraged me to reconnect.
To round out the group of sixteen, I reached out to design leaders I had never met before, based on their personal reputation and published work. They include Colin Koop, Design Partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Ana Pinto-Alexander, Health Interiors Principal at HKS; Mustafa Chehabeddine, Principal at KPF; and Mariko Masuoka, Design Principal at Pelli Clarke & Partners.
Two design leaders have firmwide oversight responsibilities in sustainability or research: Margaret Montgomery, Principal and Global Sustainable Practice Leader at NBBJ, and Billie Faircloth, Partner and Research Director at KieranTimberlake. And Nader Tehrani wears two design leadership hats: one as the Founder and Principal Designer at NADAAA, and the other as Dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union.
Finally, one of the most inspiring leaders I was privileged to meet is also the youngest: Alan Ricks, Founding Principal and Chief Design Officer of the non-profit MASS Design Group, the firm honored by the AIA with the 2022 Architecture Firm Award. His innovative practice brings integrated design and construction services to communities around the world that need them the most and are in the least advantaged position to obtain them.
Together, the sixteen leaders represent a wide variety of demographics, firm types, roles, and expertise. Their individual journeys demonstrate there are many paths to career success. My sincere hope is this book will help educate and inspire our next generation of design leaders, particularly women, people of color, and immigrants, and I am profoundly grateful to each of the sixteen design leaders for participating.
The Work
My first book, The Digital Architect, was published in 1996 and focused on the emergence of digital technology in the architecture profession. In its final chapter, “Atoms Versus Bits,” I wrote about my experience working on the Monterey Bay Aquarium at EHDD. I was initially hired by the