Indesign takes five with Wendy Geitz, Geyer’s first female CEO, to hear what’s on the agenda for steering the design practice, and get her thoughts on what exactly makes a great leader.
Wendy Geitz has recently been announced as Geyer‘s new CEO. With thirty years experience in the industry along with sharp business acumen, Geitz is poised to continue the growth of one of Australia’s largest interior design practices.
Wendy Geitz: My first priority is talking to the Geyer team and our clients to understand the opportunities we have. Due to its incredible culture, Geyer is distinctively placed to take advantage of new thinking across industries and within design itself. We’ll be exploring how we can build that into our day-to-day way of working, our business and operating models, continuing the tradition of designing for our clients and not ourselves.
We’ll be looking at service extensions that make sense for our clients and our people, again with the core mantra of designing great environments and experiences for our clients. But I can’t tell you much more for now. You’ll need to wait and see.
Design thinking is fundamental to the way I create and solve. I was fortunate enough to work within Lendlease in the 90’s where it was the norm. We didn’t use the term then, but it was common practice to solve problems and build things using design thinking methodologies. And when I led DEGW, design thinking was a foundation principle.
Design thinking in its raw form is critical. It’s so important not to miss key stages like immersing and exploring the problem, and then testing your ideas. People tend to struggle with and even miss these stages. The human desire to solve something and rapidly move away from the discomfort of the unknown is immense and can kybosh the process (check out Daniel Kahneman’s book Fast and Slow Thinking if you want to understand this more).
The essence is, if you don’t know what you are solving how can you build solutions. I can generate enormous numbers of ideas, as can most designers. But the critical test is developing ideas that have real impact. So you need to observe, probe, listen and explore, and ultimately truly test your ideas.
The difference between a good and a great leader is that they are truly committed, show humility, have the strength to question things – even show doubt, and a relentless drive to push through.
They are both a catalyst and a rudder knowing where the organisation is going AND putting in the hard yards to get there. Sometimes being in the trenches supporting their people. Sometimes being the storyteller connecting people to the dream, getting the heart and head to work as one.
They work beyond their own personal agenda and are highly committed to the big picture, even doing themselves out of a job if that’s what it takes.
They embolden their team for greatness, helping people believe they are good at what they do, knowing what success looks like, and most importantly bringing out their strengths. They’re not afraid of their own weaknesses and see them as an opportunity for others to shine.
They are often disruptors, not accepting the world as it’s supposed to be. And if that means stepping on some toes then that’s okay too. This often means they’re quite candid, having the insight to see what’s going on.
And lastly, they act decisively, expertly balancing the desire for information and getting on with it, building that decision-making capacity across the organisation.
I developed enormous respect for my design teams when client side. They were truly a partner, well beyond providing great aesthetics. More importantly they had our backs throughout the process. This requires great strength and value, and I believe it’s underrated not only with clients but within design companies.
I’m fascinated by the business models that persist in the A+D community. The legacy of deep hierarchies in large organisations and the fear that they may not get the next job at times drives behaviours that I believe destroy value. Winning the next job at all costs, especially in a downturn, has huge impacts. Over many years, the margins have been driven down leaving little room to invest. To halt this behaviour will take great insight across the industry.
And leaders in the industry need to help their people anchor their success in the outcomes of what they create, not just the beauty. That’s being overly simplistic, but you can always feel when someone has designed from a deep understanding of their clients, from a deep respect. The result just makes sense, makes you smile and often challenges you. This thinking can even help when you get a constrained budget.
I feel privileged to be leading such an amazing company full of talented people. But aspiring to reach any role or status, including CEO, is not how I view the world or my career. In fact, I would prefer to have no title on my business card.
I like to think about the impact I can make, in whatever role I’m in, and how I can grow in that experience. It’s also about using my core strengths of leading people and being brave to lean in to change.
It’s a fascinating time in design. Boundaries across disciplines are being blurred, the notion of work is changing, and technology is transformative.
Clients are increasingly smarter and understand that space and place impact their people and business success. Business cycle times are getting shorter, and variability greater, which creates even more complex circumstances to design within.
Geyer is well placed to take advantage of these changes and at its core believes intelligent, beautifully designed spaces inspire people, and inspired people create value for organisations.
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
In the bid to balance the desire to live amongst nature with the modest footprint of today’s homes, designer Victoria Azadinho Bocconi looks for inspiration in the depths of the Amazon jungle.
The workplace has changed – and it will continue to evolve. With dynamism at the heart of clients’ requirements, architects and designers at leading practices such as Elenberg Fraser are using and recommending Herman Miller’s OE1 products for the future workplace.
2023 is well under way and studios are being shaken up across Australia. See who’s part of the latest round of promotions and appointments.
Geyer is evolving workplace design to respond to neurodiversity and embed greater inclusivity and equity into its clients’ physical spaces, writes global design director Adam Mundy.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
The Living Space category at the 2023 INDE.Awards showcases homes that are innovative, multi-detailed and beautifully resolved. This category affords the chance to explore what makes a house a perfect home and sets the bar high for residential design right across the Indo-Pacific region.
GH Commercial is now the exclusive flooring and carpet partner of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2023 – and two x double passes are up for grabs.
Jaci Foti-Lowe has created a highly personal project with ‘The Front Room’, a gallery, creative studio and design store underpinned by 20 years of observation, curation and her experience within the global art and design community.
The best residential interior incorporates all manner of elements. From materials, colour and products through to imaginative aesthetics and creative innovations and The Interior Space at the 2023 INDE.Awards is the perfect showcase for homes that shine with outstanding design.