Dutch designer Marcel Wanders doesn't always play by the design rules, opting for concepts that are lighthearted and surprising but always timeless. Take his Knotted chair, which put him on the map and transformed the design landscape. Whimsy meets playfulness in everything Wanders' touches, including his latest, the Mondrian Doha, which is a feast for the senses.

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Among her many accomplishments, the tennis superstar has found time to launch her own design firm, V Starr Interiors, as well as start her own fashion brand, EleVen. Unsurprisingly, Williams is driven by a competitive spirit that has made her a noteworthy contender on and off the court.
 
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Brad Wilson started his career working with his mom to open a series of bakeries throughout Chicago. It was a natural step, then, to go into hotels, helping to launch brands such as W and the gamechanging Ace Hotels. His pragmatic approach to hospitality has evolved into a deep love and understanding for the industry. "I'm sort of a junkie" for it, he says. "I crave it."

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Alexandra Champalimaud's owes her storied career to perseverance, gumption, and unwavering self-confidence. She fled Portugal and ended up in Montreal, starting her own design firm with just three people in her apartment. Today, she's responsible for 52 in New York. She credits her success to being tenacious and paying attention to the details.

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Since the Brooklyn-based Studio Tack came on the scene six years ago, Brian Smith and his team have become a highly sought-after firm known for imbuing each space with an authentic touch. Perhaps nothing has resonated more with the design world than the firm’s reimagination of the motel. From the Sound View Inn in Greenport, New York to the Anvil Hotel in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Studio Tack has a found a niche that celebrates the great American road trip in a modern, yet nostalgic way.

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Margaret McMahon has had a storied career, though her path was a bit unconventional. After a summer of windsurfing and smoking pot, McMahon's mother encouraged her to find work at a temp agency. As luck, or fate, would have it, that led her to Trisha Wilson of Wilson Associates, who "saw something in me that I didn't see in myself," says McMahon. After three decades with Wilson, she left to helm Wimberly Interiors, the design arm of architecture firm WATG in New York, which now boasts multiple offices and a vast portfolio of high-end hospitality and residential projects that can be credited to McMahon's passion, savvy, and open-mindedness.

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Anda Andrei’s design personality is apparent in each of her properties, including her work for the Asbury Park development in New Jersey. She credits her collaborations with Ian Schrager, Philippe Starck, and Herzog & de Meuron for enriching her design sense, ultimately leading her to go out on her own. “I felt like I owed it to myself to give it a try before it's too late.” It wasn’t an easy road for Andrei, who fled her native Romania and landed in New York in 1981 as an asylum-seeking refugee. But thanks to her tenacity, ambition, and confidence, she is one of the most interesting and compelling designers in the industry today.

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Even before he knew what the word meant, Kevin Boehm knew he wanted to be a restaurateur. Though his journey was unconventional—he dropped out of college and took a chance on Panama City, Florida where he opened his first restaurant—Boehm is now a venerated F&B leader, known for his chef-driven, design-led restaurants in Chicago (the Girl and the Goat, Momotaro, and Swift & Sons, to name a few), all under the Boka Restaurant Group umbrella, the company he founded with partner Rob Katz.

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As CEO of Virgin Hotels, Raul Leal has taken on the immense task of helping bring Virgin's distinct, cheeky vision to life. The first hotel in Chicago was "a labor of love," he says. He's helmed the company since 2012 (joining in 2010 as president), but the Cuban-born veteran hotelier has long been drawn to lifestyle hotels, starting Tecton's boutique division Desires Hotels before making the switch to work for Richard Branson. For more information and a complete transcript of the interview, go to hospitalitydesign.com/people/podcasts

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