Perkins+Will expands leadership

Boston, MA Perkins+Will has strengthened and diversified its leadership team through a combination of hires and internal promotions. Principal Lisa Killaby has joined the studio to lead its workplace strategy practice, and associate principal Gautam Sundaram has joined to lead its urban design practice. At the same time, operations director Andrew Grote, marketing director Carolyn Cooney, and senior designer Matthew Pierce have been named associate principals. 

“The growth of our leadership team will enable us to better service our clients across the multiple industries that we support locally, regionally, and nationally,” said Robert Brown, principal and managing director of Perkins+Will’s Boston studio.
“Each new leader works across practice areas and disciplines, allowing us to collaborate more effectively and provide our clients with the strategic direction and design thinking that they have come to expect from Perkins+Will.”

Lisa Killaby joins Perkins+Will with decades of experience, most recently holding interior design leadership positions at Stantec and ADD Inc. in Boston. Killaby will team with the studio’s interior design director Jeannine Campbell, as well as science and technology practice leader Bill Harris, to focus on corporate clients on the east coast. She will work closely with principals to build out research and establish plans to bolster efficiency. Killaby is currently a member of the CoreNet board and is working on the student engagement effort across Boston-area universities. She is also a member of IIDA and is a LEED accredited professional. “Workplace strategy is integrated into all practice areas, spanning from higher education to tech, healthcare and beyond,” said Killaby. “Considering the growth of emerging markets across the country, especially in local neighborhoods like Boston’s Seaport District and parts of Cambridge, it has rapidly changed the way companies operate and how employees need and want to work. Through a combination of gathering and creating tools and processes, and staying on top of market trends, I will help Perkins+Will better service a range of clients to tackle problems from operations and efficiency to recruitment and retention.”

Gautam Sundaram has been based in Boston for more than 20 years and his areas of focus have spanned landscape architecture, urban design and academic planning. Most recently, he was a principal at DumontJanks, and prior to that a senior associate at Sasaki. At Perkins+Will, Sundaram will focus on urban design and planning in the Boston area as well as the broader region. He will work predominantly with commercial design, life sciences, and education leaders to frame projects from an urban design standpoint. He is an active member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Boston Society of Landscape Architects and Council of Architecture in India. “I look forward to enriching Perkins+Will’s contributions to the environment, community and planet,” Sundaram said. “As a global, interdisciplinary firm, it is our duty to champion social responsibility, use data analytics to tackle challenges, and have an integrated systems approach to planning and urban design.”

In addition to his role as operations director, where he oversees the daily operations of the Boston studio, Andrew Grote is a designer, project manager, and project architect for educational clients, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and the Massachusetts School Building Authority. Grote has served as guest critic at several colleges and universities, and as a lecturer at the Boston Architectural College and Northeastern University School of Architecture.  

As marketing director, Carolyn Cooney brings marketing and strategic expertise that drives the development and implementation of the studio’s marketing, client engagement, and strategic planning efforts. Cooney has played an active role with the Boston Society of Architects, having served as co-chair of the marketing and public relations committee for six years prior to her election to the membership committee, where she now focuses on strategic outreach and communication.

Matthew Pierce is a senior designer who has worked on projects for a wide variety of client types across the U.S. and the world. He led the design of the award-winning Living + Learning Commons at Keene State College in Keene, NH and most recently led the design of The Exchange at 100 Federal St. in downtown Boston. He is a frequent guest critic at many Boston-area universities and is part of a firmwide network of experts with a special interest in computational design and advanced visualization.