Design-focused culture attracts top talent: Meet our new team members
Design-focused culture attracts top talent: Meet our new team members
We’re pleased to announce that we have recently welcomed five new team members, each bringing exciting new capabilities and experience to our firm. As we continue to expand our work with national retail clients, regional developers and small business owners, we have remained committed to high-quality design while also creating a collaborative, creative culture. Our multidisciplinary approach brings together strategists, architects, designers and interior environment and brand experience experts to design seamless experiences in any built environment. This approach has fostered a culture in which our team members thrive both professionally and personally, enjoying a fun and collaborative atmosphere while also having the opportunity to work on diverse and exciting design projects.
We’re pleased to introduce (from top left) Vice President, Marketing & Operations Emily Wiggin, Project Architect Zachary Smith, Senior Experience Designer George Brown, Designer Douglas Schmidt and Operations Specialist Marissa Ellis. Read on to learn more about each new member of our team.
Emily Wiggin – Vice President, Marketing and Operations
To sustain and scale our growth while continuing to provide extraordinary client services, we are making investments in our employee experience and business infrastructure. In support of these goals, we have hired Emily Wiggin as Vice President, Marketing & Operations. Emily brings a wealth of knowledge from her more than 20 years’ experience at organizations ranging in size and industry, from small manufacturing to midsize retail to global Fortune 100. As we grow, Emily will guide investments and improvements across all facets of firm infrastructure, including technology, human resources and finance. In parallel to her operational responsibilities, she will draw on her successful communications background to build and execute an integrated marketing strategy based on thought leadership in the design space.
Zachary Smith – Project Architect, AIA, NCARB
In support of our efforts to deliver innovative multidisciplinary architecture and design experiences on a bigger scale, we’ve hired Zachary Smith as Project Architect. Zachary brings more than 15 years’ experience working with mixed-use developments and high-end hospitality projects across the country. His projects have ranged from adaptive reuse of former industrial facilities to high-end retail stores to the multi-building redevelopment of large campuses into one-of-a-kind experiences. Named a “2021 One to Watch” by the New England Real Estate Journal, Zachary prides himself in bringing unparalleled understanding of his clients’ goals to all his work. At WINTER HOLBEN, Zachary will bring his top-tier experience to high-performance contemporary design solutions for our larger mixed-use commercial and hospitality clients.
George Brown – Senior Experience Designer
As our partnership with Bank of America and other retail client work continues to grow significantly, we are again expanding our talented design team, with the recently hired Senior Experience Designer George Brown. George brings more than 20 years’ experience helping national and regional clients to express their brand through environmental and experiential graphics programs of all scopes and sizes. At WINTER HOLBEN, George is leading critical work on our recently expanded contract with Bank of America to create merchandising, branding and artwork implementation drawings for locations across the country, in addition to being an integral member of our design team supporting ongoing initiatives for a variety of retail clients.
Douglas Schmidt – Designer
In the spirit of collaboration, we recognized the need for a designer with an architecture background and graphic design experience. We were thrilled to find this in new Designer Douglas Schmidt. Douglas brings nearly 10 years of cross-functional and architectural firm experience in graphic design, marketing content development, and project support. At WINTER HOLBEN, Douglas will support work across disciplines, from architecture to branding.
Marissa Ellis – Operations Specialist
As our client list and employee roster both continue to grow, so does day-to-day studio activity – and the need to keep everything running smoothly. To fill this need, we welcomed Marissa Ellis to the role of Operations Specialist in August. She brings expertise and experience from her previous roles in the construction and financial services industries, where she gained critical skills in organizational and contract management, customer service and office management. At WINTER HOLBEN, Marissa is already creating a happier team with the support, supplies (and most importantly, snacks!) we need, and a more efficient office with her support of day-to-day operations, bookkeeping and HR administration.
Principal Elisa Winter Holben reflected on the addition of our new team members: “Over the past six years at WINTER HOLBEN, we have cultivated a truly unique multidisciplinary design firm that offers the opportunity to be a part of exciting design projects alongside a highly collaborative and dedicated team. This, along with our location in beautiful Kittery, Maine, has brought some incredibly talented and essential team members to our firm. We are so excited to have Emily, Zach, George, Douglas and Marissa join and support our growth.”