We Must See Color. 25 Black Collaborators To Know in 2021.

Feb 25

“There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
~ Amanda Gorman

We created Butterfly Voyage to encourage diversity of all types in real estate development; we wanted to “cross-pollinate” the industry using our extensive experience alongside new thinking to bring talented collaborators with different perspectives to the table. Our north star is to provide value to the real estate development industry to deliver memorable new developments.

Once upon a time, we prided ourselves in not seeing color; only to realize that not seeing color was not good enough. In 2020, we committed to seeing it, to actively speak up when we don’t see enough of it, and go above and beyond to share beautiful work done by collaborators of color. Today our emphasis is on the color Black.

In our inaugural piece about Black Collaborators last June, we were reactive — “know about these collaborators now, it’s so obvious!” was our thinking. It became one of our most-read Journal pieces and we know from our vast network that we will be seeing more Black collaborators in real estate development. This year, we are providing marketing-focused value to our developer clients — great collaborators enhance your marketing strategy, and proactively engaging with an increasingly diverse customer base drives triple-bottom-line success.

BV is highlighting 25 Black-led companies and collaborators in real estate and adjacent spaces, focusing on Interior Design, Architecture & Green Spaces, Creative & Marketing, and Changemakers & Visions for the Future. Not all are a seamless fit into real estate development — it is our responsibility to bring these new perspectives to our industry, as they communicate their value proposition to us.

Editor’s note: Some language has been adapted from each collaborator’s website or the published sources to ensure transparency + accuracy. All contributors have been noted and credited.

INTERIOR DESIGN

Joy Moyler Interiors : Joy Moyler, Founder & Creative Director ➤

Joy Moyler describes her firm’s style via Architectural Digest as “Classic and crisp with a modern vibe” alluding to the chic style that she’s developed after working in the offices of John Saladino and Thierry Despont, as well as what she calls “Ralph Lauren University.” With more than 25 years of experience, Joy has worked with some of the most notable architecture, interior design firms, and fashion houses including Ralph Lauren, Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), Kohn Pederson Fox, The Office of Thierry Despont; Moyler was formerly the US Head Designer of the Giorgio Armani Interior Design Studio.

BV Insight: We are beyond excited for the just-launched Joy Moyler Atelier, which features some of the most beautifully designed tableware that we have ever seen — that also pay homage to our hometown of New York with her Beresford, Majestic, and Dakota pieces inspired by the iconic residential buildings on Central Park West.

Lenny Kravitz | image by Douglas Friedman

Kravitz Design : Lenny Kravitz, Founder ➤

Kravitz Design is a conceptual creative studio founded by Lenny Kravitz in 2003. With a modern sensibility and a focus on interiors, industrial design, branding, and graphic design. Kravitz Design’s work now includes some of the world’s top real estate developers (No 75 Kenmare & The Stanley House), hospitality groups (Hotel de Roxie in Paris), and consumer goods brands (Leica, Kartell, CB2). We were delighted to find that Kravitz’s work goes beyond the coastal elite cities, with Temple Detroit as an example of what the firm is working on.

BV Insight: How amazing would it be to bring Kravitz’s experiential and design-thinking to a larger placemaking endeavor?

Sheila Bridges Design : Sheila Bridges, Principal & Creative Director ➤

Sheila Bridges founded her design firm in 1994 — clients include former President Bill Clinton and his staff, Columbia University and Princeton University. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Architectural Digest, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Interior Design. She has also been included in Gotham and New York Magazine‘s Top Interior Designer’s lists, House Beautiful’s “Top 100 Interior Designers” as well as Elle Décor’s 2011- 2020 A List. Sheila is also the author of two books: Furnishing Forward: A Practical Guide to Furnishing for a Lifetime, and The Bald Mermaid, A Memoir (sparked by her diagnosis with alopecia).

BV Insight: Bridges’s Harlem apartment, atop an Italian Renaissance palazzo-style edifice built for the Astor family in 1901 was beautifully profiled in “Inside a Beloved Designer’s Ravishing Home in Harlem” via One Kings Lane. Her often sold-out Harlem Toile designs put a fresh perspective and contemporary approach to a historically colonial pattern.

Corey Damen Jenkins | image by Meghan Marin | via Architectural Digest

Corey Damen Jenkins & Associates : Corey Damen Jenkins, Principal & CEO ➤

Corey Damen Jenkins is putting Detroit’s design on the world stage. Jenkins mixes vivid colors with layered patterns to create architecturally inspired spaces that are polished, inventive, and unexpected. Taking cues from the haute couture runway, his projects feature luxurious and refined materials. “My goal is to ensure that my clients’ homes are always classic, livable, and without an expiration date.” Jenkins has worked with clients throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, with offices in New York and Detroit. His bold interiors have graced the front covers of House Beautiful, Traditional Home, and more. Jenkins has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Detroit News, and Vanity Fair.

BV Insight: Inside the Home of Interior Designer Corey Damen via Hour Detroit, gives us a peek into his home, and we LOVE his Modern Lady’s Library for the Kips Bay 2019 Show House - this is a library designed for a strong, powerful woman. Jenkins says it best “All in all, this Lady’s Library pays homage to the women who run the world: from the household to Capitol Hill—and everything in between.”

Dani Arps | image by Ball&Albanese | via Curbed

Dani Arps : Dani Arps, Founder ➤

Arps has over 11 years of design experience and is one of the most coveted interior designers in the startup world — she opened her eponymous firm in 2014 after graduating from the Pratt Institute. Her design practice is primarily focused on the technology office space (she also has residential experience), working with Daily Harvest, SeatGeek, Codecademy, and General Assembly to create over 250K sqft of design spaces. Arps has earned accolades from House Beautiful, Metropolis, and Curbed. Given her passion for furniture design, Dani custom designs a majority of furniture pieces for her projects and is currently looking forward to launching her own line with Industry West 2021.

BV Insight: Now that we know that returning to the office will never look or be experienced in the same way again, it would be fabulous to bring Arps in as a collaborator to think about how home office or amenity spaces can be approached in a thoughtful way. We also love this piece via Kinfolk — “Staying True: Danielle Arps.”

Leyden Lewis | via Leyden Lewis Design Studio

Leyden Lewis Design Studio : Leyden Lewis, Founder & Creative Director ➤

Leyden Lewis Design Studio is a full-service design firm that has over three decades of experience working on private residential work, new developments, commercial and institutional developments, private art consulting, and exhibition curation. As Leyden says on his website “Joy and laughter fuel me, my sensitive nature allows me to see the beauty and potential in all aspects of life and to incorporate that into a multidisciplinary thought-practice.”

BV Insight: Interior Design recently featured “10 Questions With… Leyden Lewis” and the designer is remarkably candid about how the pandemic affected him on a personal, and professional level. He also brings up the question of income inequality when potential clients are approaching designers of color — it’s a great point. We are working on a way to make marketing budgets more transparent so that both our clients and collaborators can focus on the work.

Jungalow : Justina Blakeney, Founder & Creative Director ➤

Justina Blakeney believes that good design increases the quality of life, color has the power to bring joy, that pattern is the spice of design, and that creativity is the key to having an amazing home. Her book, “The New Bohemians,” is a democratic guide that shows readers how to bring positive energy to their homes. Blakeney is the founder of the home décor brand, Jungalow®, and the author of The New Bohemians book series. Justina's collections, featuring her hand-painted artwork, span home decor, furniture, stationery, textiles, travel, kids, and accessories. We were inspired by her comments on identity words via her journal piece on her roots & identity - “While I still identify as mixed, as a person of color, a Black woman, a Californian and as a Jew, I also identify as a mom, as an artist (it’s taken time to own that one), as an entrepreneur and as a blogger.”

BV Insight: We love this piece via Domino, “Justina Blakeney Actually Doesn’t Love Being an Interior Designer” which speaks to the multihyphenate’s start, vision, and why the career path of a traditional interior designer did not work for her. We can see Blakeney and her team doing work in real estate development (especially amenities and community-focused spaces) that joyfully bring people together.

ARCHITECTURE & GREEN SPACES

Perkins + Will : Zena Howard, Principal, Managing Director, North Carolina ➤

Zena Howard is Perkins & Will’s Cultural Practice Leader and Managing Director of the North Carolina practice, as well as a founding member of the firm’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Council. Howard has been integral in developing and realizing Remembrance Design™, an urban and architectural design process that engages historically under-served and negatively impacted communities to redress painful issues, bridge diverse experiences, inspire resilient communities, and infuse culture into projects. Howard’s career has been defined by visionary, complex, and culturally-significant projects, such as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture that navigates social issues of equity and justice, restoring lost cultural connections by honoring history and memory.

BV Insight: Howard is an icon in her field, and as an incredibly successful architect, has extensive technical expertise combined with her empathetic approach is what makes her a star. Empathy is not a straight line, and it evokes emotion to hear her so plainly speak to it in Walter’s (named after Sir. Walter Raleigh) piece “A Gift for Listening.” Author J. Michael Welton details how her objective is to engage with residents and dredge up memories — good and bad — so they know how to move ahead. “And then it’s like, Wow! We’ll be able to address this,” she says.

Moody Nolan : Jonathan Moody, President & CEO ➤

Moody Nolan is the largest African American-owned architecture practice in the United States. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio the firm has offices across the U.S., and expertise in a broad range of industries. Notable projects include Nashville Music City Convention Center, River & Rich, and Charleston’s International African American Museum in conjunction with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. In addition, they have received 49 awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and 45 from the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), most recently receiving the AIA’s 2021 Firm of the Year Award.

BV Insight: Jonathan Moody’s December 2020 TED Talk, “Design is an Act of Hope” inspires all of us to realize that we all have a voice in great design, and can have a role in creating tools for inclusive wealth creation via real estate.

McKissack & McKissack : Deryl McKissack, President & CEO ➤

Over the past 25 years under Deryl McKissack’s leadership, McKissack & McKissack has grown to 170 employees, with offices in Baltimore; Chicago; Dallas; Los Angeles; Miami; and Washington, DC. The firm is ranked by Engineering News-Record as one of the top Construction Management for-fee firms in the nation. The firm has worked on landmark projects like the new Museum of African-American History and Culture on the National Mall for the Smithsonian Institution, the Navy Pier Centennial Projects in Chicago, and served as the architectural firm of record for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC. McKissack & McKissack is a continuation of the nation’s oldest African-American architectural firm and traces its beginnings to Moses McKissack, a master builder who was also a slave. Deryl McKissick’s bio on the company website, mentions that the firm was launched in 1990, with a shoestring budget of $1,000. We respect how much work it took to get there.

BV Insight: We love this Inc. piece “She Built a Business With $30 Million in Revenue--and a Mission to Root Out Racism in the Construction Industry” to gain insights into what inspires Deryl McKissick, along with her experiences as a Black woman in the construction industry.

offTOP Design : Demar Matthews, Founder & Principal ➤

offTOP Design’s mission is to improve the built environment in black neighborhoods through architecture and design using a comprehensive and collaborative method that draws on strong relationships with local communities and a deep understanding of their issues. Matthews will make you think differently about how the simplest Black design can have a highly nuanced approach. Often, real estate development moves into a minority (often predominantly Black) neighborhood and builds another sterile set of glass buildings; Matthews offers compelling ideas as to how a Black Aesthetic can be interpreted thoughtfully and have a lasting impact — it doesn’t have to be that way. You CAN build something that commands benchmark pricing yet also honors its locale.

BV Insight: The minute we began to read "Discovering a Black Aesthetic in Architecture" — An Investigation” via Archinect our perceptions of how a Black perspective in architecture could be thought about, designed, and seen by people were changed forever. Matthews discusses some of the challenges he’s encountered with a young company, fresh ideas, and a pandemic in Voyage ATL’s piece introductory piece about him. You can donate to the firm’s first project, located in Watts, California via the project’s GoFundMe page.

sekou cooke STUDIO : Sekou Cooke, Principal ➤

Sekou Cooke is an architect, researcher, educator, curator, and brings thoughtful processes alongside rigorous experimentation to a vast array of project types from public, non-profit, and residential works in New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, to mixed-use projects and tenant improvements in California, to speculative developments locally and internationally. He is also an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture where he teaches design studios and seminars that value breadth of exploration over formulaic production, which includes the era of Hip-Hop Architecture.

BV Insight: The Museum of Modern Art’s “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America,” co-curated with Mabel O. Wilson, is the first exhibition for which Black and African Diasporic architects, artists, and designers will be the sole focus of a show that will observe, question and speak to the celebration of Black Life rather than excavating such histories of disenfranchisement, violence, and despair; discussing the ten commissioned projects of The Black Reconstruction Collective, followed by a conversation between Associate Curator Sean Anderson and Cooke.

The Black Gardener : Danny Clarke, Founder ➤

Dannahue “Danny” Clarke is a British horticulturist, and he may best be known as the BBC’s Instant Gardener; there’s very little he won’t know about how to transform a garden. Clarke was born in Oxford to immigrants from Jamaica, and decided to call himself “The Black Gardener” to help build recognition; he is also currently working with Homebase on their Great British Green Up campaign to help UK households make their outdoor spaces a little greener. Clarke is a staunch advocate for climate change and sustainability-focused initiatives, as well as how green spaces and gardens can enrich communities to thrive.

BV Insight: We’ve binged on our fair share of BBC shows during the pandemic; Instant Gardener makes it onto our list of recommended viewing. What we love most is how he maximizes the impact of smaller outdoor spaces — something we see more of in the multifamily/new development world. His design thinking can be applied to any new development that offers private outdoor space, regardless of price point.

Pine House Edible Gardens : Leslie Bennett, Founder ➤

Pine House Edible Gardens is built upon the belief that the human impulse to be in a relationship with the land and with each other can be met in a beautiful, productive garden. Her innovative equity pricing model ensures that these resources can be available to all. Raised in the Bay Area and based in Oakland since 2009, Leslie holds degrees from Harvard University, Columbia Law School, and the University College London in the fields of environmental justice, land use law, cultural property, and preservation. Bennett’s work has been featured in Sunset Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Garden Design, C Magazine, American Gardener, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle.

BV Insight: We love this piece via The PlantHunter about Black Sanctuary Gardens, a project initiated by Bennett that funds and creates gardens in collaboration with Black women and communities — making space to rest, heal, gather, collaborate, be inspired, and nourished. With Food Insecurity and Food Justice as the driving causes for much-needed new models, we must literally look to the Earth to help provide nourishment.

CREATIVE & MARKETING

Uncomn Projects : Kenya Williams, Managing Partner ➤
Based in Los Angeles, Williams manages business development and business operations for Uncomn Projects, which provides consumer insights, brand identity, and collateral creation (websites, visualizations, print) alongside services for tenant engagement and brand activation. Prior to joining the firm, Williams spent 15 years in commercial real estate lending, most recently as an Executive Director at JP Morgan Real Estate Banking Group, managing the Los Angeles and Arizona markets. She is one of the founding members of The Regal Group, a networking group for women in real estate, and is a member of the USC Lusk Board, ULI, City of Hope LARE Council, and ICSC.

BV Insight: The thinking that Uncomn Project references in their case studies is refreshingly authentic. Their market study finding for The Pearl on Wilshire in L.A. observed that “…that the majority of the market was selling a lifestyle rooted in the area’s nightlife scene, ignoring the unique needs of the consumer.” More of this type of thinking will allow new development products to appeal to the widest audience possible; decrease absorption time, and results in customers that see themselves first in a potential new home.

Aesthetíque : Julien Albertini, Principal ➤
Aesthetíque specializes in residential and hospitality design as well as branding and graphic design. The firm has built a global portfolio and an award-winning international presence. Albertini is inspired by nature and the natural environments surrounding each project. With over a decade of design and construction experience, he has compiled a list of clients including Calvin Klein, 1 Hotels, and Silverstein Properties. His experience includes base building design, renovations, residential design, as well as hospitality and retail developments. With a broad design and construction background, intuitive understanding of consumer tastes, and ability to incorporate environmental, architectural and graphic design solutions, Asthetique creates projects that are as cohesive as they are comprehensive. We loved their work on Brown Street in Philadelphia, the Juniper Lighting Showroom, and the whimsical Ice Scream in New York.

BV Insight: In this segment from DesignTV by SANDOW, Interior Design Editor-in-Chief Cindy Allen chats with Alina Pimkina and Julien Albertini of Asthetique Group about their firm, their global presence, what inspires them, and how they inspire each other as business partners; you can see more of their press mentions here.

Jade Purple Brown | via Jade Purple Brown

Jade Purple Brown : Jade Purple Brown, Founder ➤

Jade Purple Brown uses strong figures, vibrant colors, and messages of optimism to create new, dynamic worlds of individuality and empowerment. Her artistic practice spans Illustration, Design, and Creative Direction, attracting a wide range of global clients. Jade’s art is currently showcased as Adobe’s splash image for Illustrator 2021. Brit + Co discussed Brown’s work with her in “Creative Crushin’: Designer Jade Purple Brown Wants Her Work to Make You Feel Free”, and we could not agree more - her work makes us feel free, even from behind a screen. Adobe’s Creative Cloud’s piece quotes Brown best…” I love how colors can evoke emotion without doing too much.” We agree.

BV Insight: We often use illustrations in real estate development marketing to diversify the type of visual assets used in marketing collateral; we would love to see Brown’s creative work in marketing materials. Her work is the Roaring 20’s equivalent of art - saturated with color, vibrant with. life, a decadent type of joy. Also, we want her Wave Rug yesterday if anyone is buying us a present soon.

Theo & Lotte : Kwanele Mpanza, Founder & Managing Director ➤

Theo & Lotte is a full-service creative agency with a presence in New York, Chicago, London, and Amsterdam. T&L is focused on alleviating business challenges through curated design, messaging, and imagery, viewing all projects through a holistic, 360 creative lens. Their international presence and our influences are diverse, yet highly authentic — everything they do has a unique identity of its own. We’d love their work for The Eleanor hotel in New York’s Hudson Valley, and CAIRN in the Netherlands.

BV Insight: Mpanza is also the Chief Revenue Officer at Consciously, which focuses on Building conscious and inclusive marketing platforms that help companies and organizations nourish their business and community ecosystems. We love their work for the Build The Equity Incubator at The Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Theaster Gates | image by Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti |via Garage

Theaster Gates Studio : Theaster Gates, Principal ➤

Theaster Gates’s work has made an impact all over the world. Based in Chicago, Gates creates work that focuses on space theory, land development, sculpture, and performance - he redeems spaces that have been left behind. Known for his recirculation of art-world capital, Gates creates work that focuses on the possibility of the “life within things.”Gates has exhibited and performed at Palais de Tokyo, Sprengel Museum, National Gallery of Art, Fondazione Prada, and Whitechapel Gallery, just to name a few. Gates was the winner of the Artes Mundi 6 prize, a recipient of the Légion d'Honneur in 2017, and was awarded the Nasher Prize for Sculpture 2018, as well as the Urban Land Institute, J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. His 2015 TED Talk on How to revive a neighborhood: with imagination, beauty, and art is not to be missed.

BV Insight: We were captivated by the entrepreneurial manner in which Gates purchased the Stony Island Trust & Savings Bank (a dilapidated Neoclassical building), from the city for $1 in 2013. It had several feet of standing water in the basement. Undeterred, Gates sold “bank bonds” of salvaged marble for $5,000 each to fund the renovation. We love Art21’s pieces on Gates, snd how he transforms sculptures with clay, tar, and renovated buildings, reimagining the raw material of urban neighborhoods into radically reimagined vessels of opportunity for the community.

AphroChic : Bryan Mason & Jeanine Hays, Founders & Chief Creatives ➤

AphroChic is dedicated to exploring the intersection of modern design and global culture across diverse populations, with a focus on highlighting culture, creativity, design, arts, fashion, and technology within the African American community. Launched in 2007, AphroChic began as a blog before quickly expanding into design, fashion, and content creation. Mason and Hays have recently launched AphroChic Magazine, bringing all of their talents together in a single platform. AphroChic has worked with LOWE’s, The Home Depot, and IKEA. The brand has also been featured in print and online in numerous publications including, The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, and New York Magazine, which celebrated AphroChic as one of the top interior design firms in New York City. The couple are the authors of REMIX: Decorating with Culture, Objects and Soul, published by Penguin Random House. In 2017, they produced HGTV’s Sneak Peek With AphroChic, a house tour series exclusively for HGTV’s Facebook Live channel.

BV Insight: Our two favorite sections on their website are the beautifully presented House Tours, and Artists & Artisans - we’ve never left the site without being inspired about a potential new collaborator for our clients, or the good energy that comes from learning about gorgeous design.

CHANGEMAKERS & VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE

Black Artist + Designers Guild : Malene Barnett, Founder ➤

Black Artist + Designers Guild (BADG) is a global platform representing a collective of independent Black artists, makers, and designers across various art and design disciplines who are at the top of their respective fields. BADG strives towards creating inclusive art and design environments through equity and inclusivity, and by providing visibility and opportunities for its members. In addition to programming and events, they create dialogue and take action towards rewriting the narrative behind the misrepresentation of Black ancestral legacy in design, bringing awareness to the inequalities in design culture.

BV Insight: Obsidian Virtual Concept House, toured by House Beautiful (also via design milk if you hit a paywall), is an expansive vision of living and dwelling for Black families. Every single designer showcasing their design thinking and work is incredibly talented. Our favorite room is the Sanctuary by Cheryl R. Riley.

Elle Decor : Asad Syrkett, Editor-in-Chief ➤

Prior to taking over the reins as Editor-in-Chief at Elle Decor in September 2020, Syrkett ran New York operations for Hem, a global studio based in Stockholm, with previous roles including as a Deputy Editor for Curbed, as well as Architectural Digest. He has also guest-lectured at Harvard Graduate School of Design on professional practice in design and co-hosted two seasons of a weekly podcast, The Curbed Appeal. We loved how Business of Home’s recent podcast “Asad Syrkett wants Elle Decor to start conversations,” and we are excited for him to start them — no better moment than right now.

BV Insight: In his March 2021 Editor’s Letter, Syrkett writes “Notions of taste and beauty can’t be separated from culture and politics. And parsing it all—the ugly histories, the eye-popping patterns, the seductive textures—is what makes celebrating design so compelling today.” We couldn’t agree more - to build the future, we must understand and accept what has happened in the past.

Design for the Just City : Toni L. Griffin, Founder ➤

Toni L. Griffin is a Professor in Practice of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and leads The Just City Lab, a research platform for developing values-based planning methodologies and tools, including the 2017 Just City Index and a framework of indicators and metrics for evaluating social justice in public space. The 2015 Public Life and Urban Justice in NYC's Plazas study developed an elaborate framework of indicators and metrics to assess how the conditions of civic life and social justice in several New York City Public plazas. Toni is also the founder of UrbanAC, based in New York, specializing in leading complex, trans-disciplinary planning, and urban design projects for multi-sector clients in cities with long histories of spatial and social injustice. Recent urban planning projects that showcase how the practice transforms legacy issues of population and economic decline into innovative places for inclusion, prosperity, and equity include Detroit Future City and MKE United: A Greater Downtown Action Agenda.

BV Insight: Toni is also co-editor of and contributor to The Just City Essays: Volume One, a collection of 26 essays by thought leaders representing 22 different cities and 5 countries, offering their propositions for ways to acknowledge injustice and promote greater justice in cities. All of the essays are meaningful, and we found ourselves reflecting on “Up From the Basement: The Artist and the Making of the Just City” (p.51) by artist Theaster Gates, and “In It Together “(p.10) by writer Leslie Lokko.

Judaline Cassidy | via Miss Judaline Speaks

Tools & Tiaras : Judaline Cassidy, Founder & Chief Visionary Officer ➤

Tools & Tiaras is passionate about creating an avenue where young girls can showcase their talents and succeed in non-traditional roles, with the belief that the future of the construction industry depends on the ability to get all capable hands on deck, particularly those of women. Working hand in hand with education providers, research institutes, and businesses, Tools & Tiaras hopes that they can introduce this career path to more girls and young women. We first heard about Cassidy via Instagram when her appearance on the Drew Barrymore Show went viral, where she taught Barrymore the basics of how to fix a toilet.

BV Insight: Cassidy founded Lean In Women In Trades to help tradeswomen share information and learn from each other. In her interview with Madame Architect’s Julia Gamolina, Cassidy shares how she made her way through apprenticeship, along with her plans to mentor and advise those who will follow her lead.

These Black-led companies and collaborators are just a few of the many talented firms out there. Butterfly Voyage hopes that this post inspires and encourages you to learn about them. We will continue to discover and share.

Butterfly Voyage offers Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) services to elevate the marketing strategy for real estate developers and new developments. Please reach out to meg@butterflyvoyage.com to begin the conversation.

If you found this useful, please forward it to a colleague or friend.

A thank you to our Butterfly Voyage industry insiders and contributors (including the incredible Basma Rajper). Their perspectives, insights discussion, and support were a key part of making this piece come to life.

Meghna Krishna Bondili

Meghna Krishna Bondili’s 16+ years of experience in real estate development includes selling, marketing, and branding $2BN of the most prominent buildings at the most notable new development marketing firms in New York and San Francisco. Her past work experience includes roles at Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, Douglas Elliman, Stribling Marketing Associates and The Mark Company (now Compass).

Meghna prides herself on her strong work ethic, sense of integrity, and professionalism. She enjoys being a true team player who prizes thoughtful and respectful communication with everyone. Meghna loves using her vast network and sense of curiosity to find talented collaborators who possess the skill set + aesthetic required for new development along with companies that are the right cultural fit for development teams. In 2020, Meghna founded Butterfly Voyage, a company purely focused on solving the need for innovative curation in the industry.

Given the current state of the real estate development market which includes very low absorption and increased timelines due to COVID-19, Meghna is open to pursuing strategic consulting roles with development teams that will need consulting services to reposition their offerings to buyers, agents and renters. Services Meghna offers include a complete marketing, budget + timeline audit then followed by detailed recommendations to enhance existing efforts + implement new strategies.

Above all, Meghna understands the evolution of an idea to an actual experience or product and all of the nuances that go into making and keeping it special.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghnakrishnabondili/