Working directly with principal and founder Sir David Adjaye to drive all new business activity, maintain relationships with existing clients and VIPs and manage a team of communications coordinators as well as in-house and external designers for offices in London, Berlin and New York. Instigating and managing marketing, media relations and self-initiated projects including exhibitions, books, products and one-off commissions. It was a role with Lots of travel and the opportunity to work with an amazing team of architects and designers and to meet an endless stream of talented people at the top of their game around the world from curators, galleries and artists to musicians, millionaires, fashion designers, pioneering agents of social change in academia, politics and environmentalism.
Key achievements and responsibilities included:
Business development & client servicing: Creating and coordinating internal teams and all external consultants. Writing RFPs, EOIs and bespoke proposals. Nurturing relationships with potential clients for both private/individual commissions and with developers, museum directors, masterplanners and local authorities.
- Key relationships, major competition and new business wins: Smithsonian Institution, New York City Department of Culture, Prince Idriss Al-Senussi, EDAW, Berggruen Holdings, District of Columbia, Linda Pace Foundation, Design Indaba, Make It Right, Kvadrat/Peter Saville, Ozwald Boateng, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Broadway Housing (NY)
PR & marketing: Developing marketing materials including newsletters, brochures and project sheets. Commissioning and project managing new website and brand identity. Fielding press enquires, managing features, acting as spokesperson. Improving practice reputation by steering press coverage within:
- All architecture trade press, plus consumer titles: Art + Auction, Elle Decoration, Architectural Digest, Dwell, Financial Times, The Guardian, Monocle, Wall Street Journal, GQ, Esquire, Vogue, New York Magazine, Evening Standard, Traveller, Surface, House & Garden, Time, New York Times, Wallpaper*, Fast Company
Publishing: Commissioning contributing writers and photographers to Adjaye Associates’ books including Adjaye Africa Architecture (Thames and Hudson and Rizzoli 2011). Project management and overseeing contracts with publisher Thames & Hudson. Writing, ghostwriting and sub-editing Adjaye Associates’ contributions to external publications for Rizzoli and academic publishers.
Exhibitions, events & special projects: Overseeing production of materials including architectural models and graphics. Liaising with host venues. Developing concepts and proposals for exhibitions and events.
Nurturing relationships with gallery directors, curators and collectors. Project management for special projects including pavilions and limited edition products.
- International touring exhibition ‘David Adjaye Making Public Buildings’ (Studio Museum Harlem, SCAD Savannah_, Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, Artpace San Antonio, Design Museum, Albion, London Design Festival, British School at Rome, Gallery MA (Tokyo), Phillips de Pury, Wright, The Graham Foundation, C:CA Moscow/Venice Biennale 2008, Habitat, Art Basel Miami Beach, Whitechapel Gallery and Kielder