HOK Co-CEO and Design Principal Eli Hoisington, AIA, LEED AP, talks with host Brian Jones about his journey to co-CEO of a global architecture firm and how that impacted his view of leadership. Eli speaks generously and candidly about the challenges of balancing leadership and design and what an “interdisciplinary approach” really means to the firm. He also discusses how the firm embraced a global mentorship approach that allows for cross-border mentor-mentee relationships. Noting that at the time of the recording, it’s 70 degrees in February in Saint Louis, Eli provides insight on sustainability, explaining that the term needs to expand to include both wellness and equity.
Highlights
- How important it is for leaders to be able to view issues through different lenses
- The importance of involving multiple disciplines in a project from the very beginning (or getting everyone “in the mosh pit”)
- Why “collaboration” is easy to say but hard to do, and how the firm prioritizes it
- How the firm nurtures and promotes design across its many offices in many time zones
- How the pandemic spawned a new global approach to mentorship
- Why it’s vital for architects to make sure their process drives their choice of technology tools, and not the other way around
Episode Resources
Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/graphicmachine/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/
Connect with Eli Hoisington
