Benjamin Moore

Founded in 1883, Benjamin Moore is North America’s favorite paint, color and coatings brand. A leading manufacturer of premium quality residential and commercial coatings, Benjamin Moore maintains a relentless commitment to innovation and sustainable manufacturing practices. The portfolio spans the brand’s flagship paint lines including Aura®, Regal® Select, CENTURY®, Ultra Spec®, Natura® and ben®. Benjamin Moore is renowned for its expansive color portfolio, offering consumers and designer more than 3,500 colors. Benjamin Moore paints are available exclusively from its more than 5,000 locally owned and operated paint and decorating retailers.  |              | 

Allyson Smith

Architectural & Design Representative, Benjamin Moore

A proven design leader who has spent over ten years in the hospitality design community curating global hotel interior environments that increased brand awareness. 

Always passionate about the design process and influencing design, Allyson currently works for Benjamin Moore & Co., a unit of Berkshire Hathaway, and North America’s most respected interior and exterior paint brand. As part of Benjamin Moore’s team, she serves as a brand ambassador in the areas of color leadership and design that further position Benjamin Moore as a color and product authority serving CT, Upstate NY, RI, and Western Mass.   

She remains committed to partnering with architects and interior designers in the New England Area.  As an Architect and Designer Rep, Allyson is the brand ambassador for Benjamin Moore & Co. offering a range of services: go-to color and product expert closing the gap between color selection and complete specifications for projects; providing continuing education classes, color trends and other product and design-focus presentations; driving sales through her attention to detail and positive relationships with all her clients. 

Gensler

Art Gensler founded our firm in 1965 and today we’ve spent half a century committed to thoughtfully informing the ways employees work and organizations operate. Our approach reflects a deep knowledge and understanding of how people use and experience space, creating places that are relevant, memorable, and distinct.

Our success and growth have afforded us extraordinary diversity and unparalleled perspective. We are interior designers, strategists, architects, and creatives. Our size has granted us the opportunity to explore divergence while remaining unified in our core, empowering us to uncover new opportunities and exhaust more options on your behalf.  |              | 

Leonardo Caion-Demaestri, ASID, NCIDQ, WELL AP

Senior Interior Designer | Account Lead Designer

Born and raised in São Paulo - Brazil, Leonardo moved to the US to further his education and professional opportunities. Upon graduating from the University of Michigan, Leonardo worked in highly-acclaimed design firms and gathered a wide project experience base. Leonardo also achieved his MBA to provide a holistic approach to his design practice.

As a licensed award winning Senior Interior Designer and ASID’s Ones To Watch Winner of 2021, Leonardo's practice focus has been in mid-to-large scale workplace projects, focusing on technology companies, professional services and creative media companies, creating a well-rounded approach to all types of spaces and client-centric experiences and demands, which align with his WELL AP Certification. He has demonstrated high design innovation and sensibility, great client relationships and dedication to his career. Leonardo is a Senior Associate at Gensler where he has been for the past 13 years and has served as Regional Technology Workplace Practice Area Leader, Design Realization Leader and Key Accounts Interior Design Lead.

Outside of the office, Leonardo is on the Board of Directors at IIDA and a member of CIDQ’s Exam Writing Committee as well as a professional member of AIA and NOMA.

HDR

HDR is an employee-owned design firm specializing in engineering, architecture, environmental, and construction services. HDR is ranked No. 7 among the world’s design firms and we’re the largest healthcare design firm. We’re also proud to be ranked No. 35 on Forbes magazine’s list of America’s Best Large Employers for 2019. Led by the strength of our values and a culture shaped by employee ownership, we network with each other, build on each other’s contributions, and collaborate to make great things possible.  HDR believes that the way we work can add meaning and value to the world. That ideas inspire positive change. That coloring outside the lines can illuminate fresh perspectives. And that small details yield important realizations. Above all, we believe that collaboration is the best way forward. So while HDR is most well-known for delivering architecture and engineering services – for adding beauty and structure to communities through high performance buildings and infrastructure – we provide much more than that. We create an unshakable foundation for progress because our multidisciplinary teams also include the firepower of archaeologists, economists, builders, analysts, artists, and scientists. Our 1,715 employees, working in locations around the world, push open the doors to what’s possible each and every day.  |              | 

Elizabeth Von Lehe, Allied ASID

Design & Brand Strategy Principal, HDR

Elizabeth Von Lehe is the design & brand strategy principal at HDR. A seasoned design leader with professional experience across multiple industries, she leads the architecture firm’s efforts to advance a holistic approach to design, embracing not only the built form, but branding, curation and the development of user experience from every angle.

Von Lehe previously worked at ICRAVE Design, where she served as director of strategy, brand and architectural design for more than seven years. Before that, she worked in design for both Target and Lands’ End. Her experience includes developing product collections for both fashion and furniture industries as well as guiding master plans and interior design concepts.

Based in New York, New York, Von Lehe is well known throughout the design professions as a leader in the field of experience design. She is a regular keynote and workshop speaker at the national and chapter levels for the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), advocating for experience design to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration and integration beyond what most designers usually practice.

Von Lehe currently serves as a Director on the national board of ASID, and is a regular graduate mentor and panelist for her alma mater, Columbia University. Her work has been featured in several industry publications and she has been interviewed by national outlets such as Bloomberg and NPR.

HGA

HGA is a national interdisciplinary design firm rooted in architecture and engineering. We believe that the best design results from deep insight into the people and passions that animate each unique environment. More than 900 people in 12 offices from coast-to-coast work to make a positive, lasting impact for clients in healthcare, arts and culture, community, corporate, education, government, science and technology, and energy markets.  

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Haley Nelson, ASID, LEEP AP, WELL AP

Associate Vice President, National Interior Design Expertise Leader 

Haley Nelson is an Associate Vice President and Senior Interior Designer in the Los Angeles office of HGA. With expertise as a workplace designer and strategist, Haley focuses on the cultivation of original insights that support the creation of places for people and organizations to thrive. Haley is currently serving as National Interior Design Expertise Leader at HGA, where she is responsible for connecting and empowering designers while elevating interior design excellence for all project types across the firm. Many of Haley’s projects have achieved the highest levels of certification, have been published, and have won design and sustainability awards. 

Mari Ansera, CID, ASID, NOMA 

Associate Vice President, Interior Design Department Leader 

Mari Ansera is an Associate Vice President and Senior Interior Designer based in the Minneapolis office of HGA, where she leads projects for workplace, education, cultural, and healthcare markets. Mari is national co-chair HGA’s Equity group and Interior Design Department Leader. She believes interior design is envisioning beautiful and functional space that bring dignity and equity to the built environment. Many of Mari’s projects have won design awards and she is a frequent presenter and jury member. She was named an ASID Ones to Watch Scholar in recognition for her contributions to the profession to cultivate a diverse design field. 

HKS

To those wanting to make an impact with design, HKS is the architect where focused people consistently deliver the extraordinary. We are passionate, knowing that people live, work, play, and inhabit the spaces and places we imagine and envision for our clients. We are responsive, understanding that we are in a service business and the vision is that of our clients – never of ours alone. We are global, creating exceptional spaces across the globe through our connected network of offices and people. We are one, with tremendous talent across a wide spectrum of expertise, believing that the value of talent, experience, and knowledge is multiplied when shared. We are thorough, balancing extraordinary design with technical expertise and construction administration backgrounds for streamlined, on-time, within-budget projects. We are HKS. We create places that enhance the human experience. Each and every day.  |              | 

Gracie Andraos, ASID, RID

Design Director, Associate Principal, HKS

A forward-thinking design leader, Gracie transforms ideas and concepts into harmonious workplace environments and experiences. Every aspect of her designs is thoughtfully executed with passion and attention to detail using an interdisciplinary approach. Gracie’s client-driven work ethic and collaborative attitude have propelled over 20 years of success leading teams for notable projects such as Expedia, JPMorgan Chase, and Sterling Bay Developers.  

She brings a modern understanding of architecture with an appreciation for a variety of design styles that are client and user-focused, infusing research, sustainability and universal design approaches. The end results are top-performing workplaces that transform organizations and the employees inside them. 

Gracie is truly passionate about the next generation of leaders in our industry.  Her approach to the design process is one where mentorship can happen anywhere, anytime and for anyone regardless of tenure, expertise or experience level.  She fosters an environment and culture of diversity where every voice matters, with transparency and empathy as the foundation to successful team building. 

HOK

HOK is a global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm. Our 1,600 people collaborate across a network of 26 offices on three continents. Since the firm’s founding in 1955, HOK has developed into one of the world’s largest, most diverse and respected design practices. HOK designs buildings and spaces that respond to the needs of people and the environment. Our designers are rooted in technical excellence, driven by imagination and focused on a solitary goal: to deliver solutions that inspire clients and communities. Serving humanity is at the core of what we believe. We embrace this responsibility through a positive culture based on the power of optimism, imagination and knowledge to innovate and merge artistic beauty with technical excellence in all we create.   |              | 

Charisma Williams, CIDQ, RID

Project Manager/Senior Designer

Charisma Williams has consummate experience in hospitality, aviation and commercial building design. With her cutting edge approach, she has impacted the industry with her distinctive and inspiring leadership in construction and project management. 

From Atlanta to Singapore, Charisma’s work can be found in many major cities internationally and airports domestically.  Results-oriented and driven, Charisma has a heroic way of delivering brand-driven design to both local and global markets. Her hands-on approach and focus on client relations deliver return on investments and create profitability that consistently lead to additional opportunities. Beyond client meetings and site visits, Charisma enjoys dancing, golf, cooking and exploring cities. 

ICRAVE

Driven by nearly two decades of experience, ICRAVE is an experience design brand that translates ideas into experiences that work in today’s world, and sets the stage for tomorrow’s. As a thought leader in strategy, interior, and experience design, we aim to work at the intersection of the digital, physical, and operational aspects of design. We approach each project as a problem to be solved in order to provide desirable solutions for our clients. We reinvent businesses through strategy and insight, and turn that experience into a brand. We’re leading the pack in food hall design through innovative and strategic measures. More than anything, we’re just a group of innovators creating cool shit together.  |              | 

David Taglione

Creative Director, ICRAVE

David serves as creative director at ICRAVE and has been a part of the ICRAVE team since 2005. Focusing on leading ICRAVE into new sectors of work, David has directed several large-scale projects including La Guardia Airport, Minneapolis St-Paul Airport, Le District, MSK's Josie Robertson Surgical Center, and MSK's David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care.  He has been a forefront of thought leadership working across sectors influencing thinking around the passenger experience, reinventing cancer care, visioning for the future of retail, and building the next evolution of the food hall.

Perkins and Will

Since 1935, we’ve believed that design has the power to make the world a better, more beautiful place. That’s why clients and community members on nearly every continent partner with us to design healthy, happy places in which to live, learn, work, play, and heal. We’re passionate about human-centered design, and how design can impact our lives through sustainability, resilience, well-being, diversity and inclusion, and mobility. And we’re committed to advancing design through research. Our global team of creatives and critical thinkers provides integrated services in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and more.

Our New York Studio

In the city that never sleeps, we never stop dreaming. Our studio’s creative energy propels us to innovate at every level. We believe design unites us all by addressing critical social needs and promoting human interaction. We draw from our raw talent, values, and design process to effect positive change. Whether we’re in our own five boroughs or anywhere else in the world, our projects are as diverse and dynamic as the metropolis we call home.                  |              |