Episode 072: Finding Your Voice as a Leader

What lessons on leadership and career growth can we learn from Practice Disrupted co-hosts Evelyn Lee and Je’Nen Chastain?

To celebrate the last day of Women’s History Month, Evelyn and Je’Nen sit down to have an open and honest discussion about their career paths as industry leaders. They’ll discuss stepping into leadership responsibilities as emerging professionals in the AIA, challenges they faced in practice, and mentors who helped them along the way. Learn more about the experiences that have informed their work as well as their diverse contributions to the profession. Across four seasons of Practice Disrupted, Evelyn and Je’Nen continue to encourage individuals to share their personal stories on leadership to elevate more voices in practice.

Hosts:

Evelyn Lee, FAIA, NOMA, is the first-ever Senior Experience Designer at Slack Technologies, Founder of the Practice of Architecture, and Co-Host of the podcast, Practice Disrupted. Lee seamlessly integrates her business and architecture background with a qualitative and quantitative focus to build better experiences for an organization's employees, clients, and guests.

She is widely published, wrote a monthly column for Contract magazine for over 3 years, and now is a frequent contributor to Architect Magazine. Evelyn has received numerous industry awards including the 2016 40 Under 40 award for Building Design + Construction and the 2014 AIA National Young Architects Award. She recently served as the first-ever female Treasurer to the AIA National Board in 2020-2021.

Je’Nen M. Chastain, MBA, Assoc. AIA is the founder of Apostrophe Consulting, a practice focused on helping architects and next-gen leaders strengthen their teams and businesses. In addition to consulting with firm leaders on practice management issues, she mentors architects on career development, leadership, and strategy. She specializes in facilitating conversations that engage multi-generational teams and has designed, developed, and presented dozens of training programs that inspire next-gen leaders. She is currently working on several in-house training solutions with award-winning firms that provide support to their teams.

Je’Nen is a co-host on the podcast Practice Disrupted, a show that explores the evolution of architectural practice through conversations with industry thought leaders. Through this work, she’s transformed her expertise in marketing and communication into a passion for telling the stories of leaders who are moving the practice of architecture forward. Common themes discussed on the show include business strategy, operations, technology, cultural shifts, entrepreneurship, and professional development.

Je'Nen earned both her MBA and BArch, and has trained in architecture. She has received several awards for her leadership in the profession, including the 2017 AIA Associates Award.

📍 Show Links:

Practice of ArchitectureEvelyn LeeApostrophe Consulting

Listen to past episodes of the show:

https://practiceofarchitecture.com/podcast/https://gablmedia.com/show/practicedisrupted/

💻 Learn about our podcast partners:

👉 Monograph is the cloud-based practice operations solution built for architects by architects. It is easy to use, beautifully designed, and helped firms streamline operations by empowering them to see project and firm-wide financial health in a single tool.  Plan your projects with schedules, budgets, roles, and team members. Track a project’s financial health with their unique MoneyGantt which takes timesheet data and makes it simple to see whether you are on track or not.  Use firm-wide revenue forecasts to make strategic decisions. With Monograph, you never have to make a decision in the dark again. 👉 Visit Monograph now.

👉 ArchIT:

Tired of dealing with generic IT providers? ArchIT offers Complete IT Solutions for Architecture, Design, and Engineering firms, including helping architects fight back against ransomware and cybersecurity attacks. Visit http://getarchit.com/pd  to set up your free 15-min Cyber Security Assessment, or custom solutions for your design firm.

👉 NCARB:

Shape the Future of Architecture. You have the power to influence future updates to how architects are educated, trained, and licensed. Visit ncarb.org/AOP to take NCARB’s profession-wide Analysis of Practice survey and ensure your voice is heard.

📍 Follow Practice Disrupted on Social:

Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Twitter