Seminars

Ownership is about financial investments and rewards; management is about direction-setting and decisions. But in many design and architecture firms, they’re inextricably intertwined. This thought-provoking seminar will explore the risks of this situation and the opportunities that come from viewing ownership as separate from management.

Speaker: Dorothy Russel is the founder and principal of Essential Futures, a Toronto-based firm that provides business management expertise to the design industry through consulting and education. She works with leaders of interior design, architecture and engineering firms on management, motivation and business succession. A regular speaker at NeoCon events, she recently completed in-depth research on the issue of ownership and management succession in the design industry. Dorothy holds a B.Math from the University of Waterloo, an MBA from the Rotman School at the University of Toronto and a certificate in interior design from Ryerson University.