Photo courtesy of Gensler
Jeanne Nutt
Outgoing co-managing director, Gensler Boston
Industry experience: 44
Age: 68
Jeanne Nutt is leaving a job co-leading Gensler’s Boston office after 25 years, over which the office grew four-fold to over 150 staffers and designed high-profile additions to the city’s built environment. An interior designer by training, with a proclivity for commercial projects, Nutt began her career in Washington, D.C. working at a small firm for around 11 years before jumping to Gensler and climbing the ranks in its New York City and New Jersey offices before being named to steer the Boston office alongside Doug Gensler. Her replacement, Fran Noval, previously headed a studio within Gensler Boston. Outside of Gensler, Nutt is also active on the Boston Ballet’s board of advisors and in the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), and the trade group’s efforts to pass legislation in Massachusetts to license interior designers like architects.
Q: When you took on the co-managing director role, women leaders in design were rare. What did it feel like to walk into the office on that first day?
A: When I came into Gensler, a large architectural firm, I never felt that there was an [attitude of] “oh, you’re an interior designer, so you only do this,” where I do think that in more traditional architectural firms, which are more male-dominated, that is sometimes a tendency, unfortunately. Gensler has been very supportive of women in general. In our industry, it’s very unusual.
We have the power of two in all of our offices in our regions and at a firm-wide level. And at most of our offices, although not all of them, the co-managing directors are usually male and female. So, I didn’t have to be like, “Oh, I gotta be better than that guy,” or present myself in a different way than who I am in order to be considered for those roles. Gensler is good at identifying leaders and then supporting their career paths. Art Gensler – who is the founder of the company – one of his favorite lines was, “Hire great people and get out of their way.” Part of it is we’re an employee-owned company, so everybody can make a difference.
Q: You’re stepping down as co-managing director of Gensler Boston after 25 years. What was the biggest highlight of your tenure?
A: I’m very lucky that I come into work every day and do what I love, and it’s never the same. I have had the privilege of working on a lot of different types of clients – Putnam, which is now Franklin Templeton. The Boston Globe offices in Exchange Place, which was a lot of fun. We just did the offices for Morgan Stanley. I’ve done a lot of law firms in my time, too, like Wilmer Hale. And they all have similar things, but what I find is always the highlight of the project is getting to really understand – truly – what the culture of the organization is and how that starts to materialize in a design, because you’re understanding how your space is going to drive culture or other, non-tangible things.
On the philanthropic side, the passion side, I’ve been involved with the Boston Ballet and the board of advisors there. Nine years ago, they were looking to relocate their school and we had a chance to help them with that. It was a lot of inclusive design – you know, neurodiversity, a universal design for a pretty diverse population of kids that are going to school there. It was just fun to see the kids come to the studio and be awed by their new space, and their ability to really enjoy coming there, whether they’re really coming just because they enjoy it or because they look at it as a career path.
Q: What about your journey as a manager? Did that have any turning points?
A: My journey, in many ways, grew in the way that the office grew. How do you deal with people when you know everybody’s name on day one, versus as the office grows? One thing I will always, always say about it is I’m going to miss the people. Because I think our office – and our firm – has a really, really strong culture. I came [to Gensler] already with the idea that my success is always going to be defined by the success of my folks. That’s watching the first time somebody is presenting who hasn’t done it before, someone who is starting to take on a new project type, or who becomes interested in learning something that they hadn’t known about before. I always feel that my leadership moments are when I really feel I can not only acknowledge but also reflect on the success of everybody.
Q: Rising costs are a live issue for many projects right now. What were your secrets for preserving good design in your projects in the face of budget pressures?
A: You know, I’ve been asked that before, and I’m like, “Yeah, well, we’re still in business.” [Laughs] One thing is – and this is something that is really, really important to me when I’m in a management or leadership role in a project – there’s no such thing as an unlimited budget. Everybody has a budget. You have to ask what it is as the first thing when you start, and then you manage it along the way with other consultants and collaborators. Unfortunately, sometimes designers and architects get a bad rap that they design these fabulous things, and then the clients are like, “Well, I can’t afford that.” We’re in the business of making our clients successful, so it’s important to make sure that we are from day one establishing the ground rules, managing expectations, giving them options. Maybe they do have some more money that you don’t know about, so you give them some options to say, hey, this one particular thing for that additional money is going to have a much greater impact than not having it. A lot of that is really, in the beginning, making sure that everything is very clearly outlined.
Q: We’re living through a period of big change in what tenants and owners want from spaces. What’s worked for you, over the course of your career, to parse out what trends are durable and worth spending money on, and what are more likely to be passing fancies?
A: Design aesthetics are really very personal, even on the commercial side. What is interesting is that there is a tendency in certain industries that they want to benchmark themselves against their competition, because they want to be able to recruit the best and the brightest. When we start to look at what the right look and feel is, it really is back to getting to know the client, really understanding their culture, making sure that we are managing to the highest and best use of the budget that they have.
What is timeless? I love to go back to spaces 10 years later and see that they still feel pretty darn good. Some of that is a client maintaining the space. There are some spaces, just by the nature of the business [that commissions them], that are going to be probably a little more trendy, that will want to be redone in three to five years. There’s no one answer to your question. It’s that we really, really try to figure that out with the client and make sure, because we want our design to last, we don’t want them to say in three years, “Oh, why did we ever pick that?”
Q: Given the current political moment, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask whether the future of initiatives to get more women into design careers was on your mind. Are they?
A: We see this from the either the junior kids that we’re interviewing or interns, there are a lot of women going to school for architecture and interior design. We have a really, really strong and very active pipeline of women in design. Besides women, we really want to make sure that we’re balancing diversity and equity we have. We have a group called Elevate that deals with any and all types of different diversity that we would find in our industry. And so holistically, as a firm, we’re trying to make sure that, yes, women are one of those groups, but we also want to make sure that we’re getting even diversity within that.
Q: Do you have advice for any women in design who also want to become leaders? What worked for you?
A: I think every person has a different path. There are so many different parts in the design profession, so early on try to make sure that you understand and explore all the different parts that go into design projects, and don’t assume that you have to take just one path. Be involved in the industry, whether it be [interior design trade group] IIDA or something like that, to start to build your personal reputation with your peers, but also to start to build relationships. Because it’s not only the relationships of the folks that you work with, but then as you start to build your experience in business, you want to have relationships with people who can start to introduce you to other people. And within your firm, try to find a mentor. Quite frankly, it would be great if it’s a woman, but even if it’s not, you need somebody who you can really talk to and that they’re going to be your advocate. You need somebody who’s going to be there to help you push your agenda forward and make sure your professional development is really being supported.
Nutt’s Five Favorite Things
- Gardening
- Experimenting with new recipes
- Streaming British TV series
- Looking at Redfin every day
- Design conversations
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this interview misidentified the co-managing director of Gensler’s Boston office. That person is Doug Gensler.
