It’s time for another feature of another one of my favorite people at HOK: Jennifer Mannier. Jennifer is on my NY-WDC Advance Strategies team, so we get to work together a good bit! Jennifer is incredibly smart, motivated, and an extremely strategic thinker. She’s always looking for ways to improve herself, our projects, and our business. A true inspiration to all of us. Plus she has a super-cute French accent.
Q: What is your job and what do you enjoy most about it?
I work with Advance Strategies in New York. There are two main parts to our practice: the on-site services group and the advisory group. The first group works with clients like Morgan Stanley or Nortel to help them manage their day-to-day space needs (CAFM systems, internal moves, etc.). They reside on site with the clients and become extensions of their Facilities and Real Estate teams. The second group which I belong to, focuses on pre- and post-design services for corporate, education, S+T or government clients. Our services include real estate strategy, workplace solutions, facilities planning, and change management. Our goal is to help our clients make informed decisions about their real estate, facilities, workplace and operations and align these with their overarching business strategy and goals. We either work on projects as a stand-alone service or collaborate with architecture, interiors or planning to offer an integrated and comprehensive project approach to our clients.
One of the best things about working with Advance Strategies is that every project is different. Over the past three years I have worked on feasibility studies, facility planning, programming, workplace strategy, and change management for a wide variety of clients: KAUST and KAPSARC in Saudi, Penn Station redevelopment, T-Mobile, Johnson & Johnson, the Gap, Avon, Canon, BMW, Mindshare, Starwood, etc. It is so much fun to uncover the different cultures, ways of operating and goals of such diverse organizations. Our work typically consists in spending a lot of face time with clients and users. I love that human connection and listening to what people do, how they do it and try to find solutions to help them do it even better. Oh, and it also does come in handy to have walked Penn Station for hours and know the shortcuts to the platforms!
Q: What do you do when you’re not at HOK?
I spend as much time possible with my family! Family has always been very important for me but it’s even more important since I moved to the US from France three years ago. I have built my own one here with my son celebrating his first birthday this week. It really is the cement that helps me feel anchored in my new home in New York.
I love cooking and am being told by my boyfriend that I am good at it (but he probably knows it’s in his best interest to tell me so after I spent a few hours working at the stove…). I live very close to Central Park but am sorry to report that I barely ever run… Instead I take my son for long strolls and know about every part of the park by now. I use to love going out to restaurants, movies, theater, new cool New York music venues… but I cannot say that I have done much of that since I am a parent. I have not lost all hope to be cool again soon!
We also travel a lot, mostly to go back to Europe to visit my parents, sister, aunts and uncles, cousins and my friends who have been around since high school. My heart beats on both sides of the ocean and I need to go back to France once in a while to put things in perspective and get my dose of French arrogance, complaining, passion, exuberance and Epicureanism. Travelling has always been a big thing for me. I even went on a 4 months trip around the world about 6 years ago that took me to Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. I have also travelled extensively throughout Central America with a backpack and no agenda (again that was when I was cool…). When travelling I love to incorporate diving where and when possible. I dove with rays, sharks, moray eels, turtles and all kinds of exotic fishes in beautiful places around the world but have never seen a wild dolphin in the ocean. So if you have a dolphin friend please ask him/her to come swim by next time I’m around.
Lastly I grew up in a family of cinema lovers and always dreamt that one day lightning would strike and I would wake up to be a new Cohen brother, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Terence Malick or Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Q: What is your favorite part of working at HOK?
The people! All the fantastic people that work at HOK and are part of creating this extraordinary culture of diversity, collaboration, idea exchange, innovation, etc… HOK offers unique opportunities to participate in initiatives outside of the day to day project work. This truly enables individuals to grow and expand their talent: HOK Life and Work+Place blogs, Blue Ocean, Product Design, Innovation Center, Idea Factory, HOKW, etc.
Working at HOK also makes me feel proud to be part of an organization with good values that is striving to make a positive contribution to the world. It’s not just about building and earning fee. It’s about integrating sustainability – not only in design but also in behaviors, operations and practices -, giving back to the community, and advancing research about the complex relationship between places and people.
Working at HOK is cool and cool people work at HOK.
Q: You’re a new mom. How do you keep it all together?
I would like to start by saying thank you for assuming that I am keeping it together! I have definitely felt like I have dropped a few balls here and there and I am still learning how to combine my work and mom roles. I think one of the keys for young mothers to be happy is to get rid of the guilt factor, and to accept to not be in control all the time. I had a serious case of the guilt when I went back to work after maternity leave and felt like I was failing at both being a perfect mother and a perfect career woman. Still now, things do not always happen the way I had planned them but they always somehow fall into place eventually.
Another important thing is not to strive for perfection but improvement and growth. The truth is I will never be a perfect parent (I am sure my son will find many ways to remind me of that when he is a teenager), and I hope that I will always feel like I can improve my work and that there are opportunities for me to grow in my career. It may take longer than I want and there may be some hick-ups along the way but if I stay focused, open, flexible and happy, I think anything is possible!
Miles and Justin (le papa de Miles)
Q: What is the strangest/funniest/most memorable work experience you’ve ever had?
My proudest moment was winning my biggest contract ever all by myself for my former architecture firm in France. It was to renovate an entire campus with people in place for a major financial institution in the Paris region (Caisse des Depots et Consignations). I found the lead, built the relationship, wrote the proposal, interviewed, negotiated the fee and managed the project. I was lacking self-confidence when I started working and it took my former employer’s vision and motivation to show me I could do much more than I thought. Although HOK is a much larger firm, it offers the same great mentorship and entrepreneurial spirit than a boutique studio.
One of my funny work moments was being in a meeting and talking to a prospective client for two hours and remain serious while looking at the huge piece of green salad he had between his two front teeth.
This interview was part of our ongoing series on Women Across HOK. For more inspirational stories, click here.
Jennifer and Miles relaxing!
