Interior architecture firm Phoenix Design One (PDO) has promoted Jennie Mayer to a principal. As such, she will join the three current principals — Fred Messner, Kerri Swischuk and Victoria Fearey — in helping build this 16-person firm’s brand, as well as managing the design team and client coordination.
“I’ve always set my sights on owning the business one day, along with the other principals,” said Mayer, a former University of Arizona music major who later switched to interior design at The Art Center Design College (now the Southwest University of Visual Arts) where she earned an associate degree. “It’s a great business model, and everyone works extremely hard here. We’re full service and like to help our clients secure transactions. Everything about PDO fits my vision of how a business should operate in this industry. My promotion is simply due to my dedication to the brand and the passion I have for what we do.”
Mayer also attributes her latest promotion to proactively helping market the firm before it was officially one of her responsibilities. She joined PDO in 2005 as a designer. In 2009 she was promoted to a project manager, and in 2010 to an associate. Mayer began her career with Tucson-based Goebel Interiors, a design firm serving hospitality clients.
“The volume and genre of clients are so different than my previous position. At PDO we deal with multiple clients and projects at one time. I get to create something new everyday. We’re constantly solving design challenges, or opportunities,” said Mayer, who had childhood aspirations to one day be a landscape architect. When music didn’t seem to be quite the right college major, she remembered her childhood dream and took a design course. “I instantly connected and quickly realized I had found my real passion in life.”
