Carole Wedge, FAIA, the president and CEO of Shepley Bulfinch, earned the Edward C. Kemper Award for her contributions to AIA, including her role in helping to pilot the Institute’s Women’s Leadership Summit and serving as chair of the Large Firm Round Table. Here she responds to our architect’s version of the Proust questionnaire.
What explains your rise from the mailroom to CEO of Shepley Bulfinch?
I love to learn—I read all the mail—and enjoy people, clients, strategy, and creativity. I love being on a team and seeing others succeed.
What’s the best description of your leadership style?
Inclusive, honest, and loyal. I also talk too much—it can be annoying!
What is your greatest achievement?
Designing a great life—family, career, friends.
What is the most memorable moment of your career?
Becoming a principal in my firm and winning some fabulous projects: Austin Public Library, Johns Hopkins University Decker Quad, Princeton Firestone Library, Harvard Innovation Lab.
What inspired you to get involved with AIA?
I wanted to contribute to the profession—it is a membership organization, and if you have ideas about making the profession better or more relevant or more diverse, you should get involved.
What have you hoped to accomplish through your AIA advocacy?
Inspire a next generation of diverse and talented people and empower them to contribute to improving our built environment: the way buildings work, addressing climate change, and creating beauty.
What progress have you seen during your career with the issue of equity in architecture?
Women have taken on more and more leadership roles. In 2004, I was the only woman CEO at the Large Firm Round Table (LFRT). Today, in 2020, there are 11 women CEOs, so we went from 0.02% to 18%. The number of women principals is also growing every year. The place we are most behind is in people of color in the profession. The LFRT is working with the National Organization of Minority Architects to strengthen our approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion to improve those statistics. It is critical we have a diverse profession so that we may serve diverse communities.
What work remains in that area?
A lot—firms are uneven in their approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion, and to making belonging a central goal in their culture.
What makes equity such an important issue in architecture?
We cannot be naive about the issues that face our communities and that we need a diverse set of perspectives and talents to address those issues. Research abounds about how diverse teams are more creative and more effective and profitable.
What is the greatest challenge facing architects today?
Last month it was talent; today it is COVID-19 and the radical change and tragedy occurring around the world.
What was the greatest challenge you faced in your career?
The downturn of 2009, and now facing the COVID-19 pandemic with compassion, humility, and strategy. Another challenge was being faced with clients who did not share our values—our value of diversity. We chose not to work for some of those clients because we could not reconcile their sexism, racism, or homophobia with our values.
What is the greatest career ambition you have yet to achieve?
To successfully transition to the next generation, to teach, write and perhaps join a corporate board or develop a consulting practice. I want to keep learning and give my colleagues room to run the firm in their own way in the coming years.
When did you first realize you wanted to be an architect?
In college when I was failing chemistry, and my neighbor in the dorm was in environmental design and architecture. I fell in love with the multidisciplinary nature of architecture.
What jobs did your parents have?
My father was a professional basketball player in 1955–63 in New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia, then he sold insurance and worked in consulting services. My mother was a teacher and then had a very successful career as a real estate agent.
What would you have been if not an architect?
Probably a biologist or an anthropologist. I love the natural world and learning about people.
What is your favorite building?
Salk Institute, although I hear the researchers do not love it. And Ronchamp, where my husband Jerry and I were married in 1988.
What does architectural misery mean?
Ugly and doesn’t work for the people in the building.
What does architectural happiness mean?
Beauty, function, and delight.
What’s the last drawing you did?
A sketch of my daughter’s room—she likes to rearrange her furniture.
Which five architects, living or dead, would you most like to have dinner with?
Leonardo DaVinci, Louis Kahn, Julia Morgan, H.H. Richardson, and Jeanne Gang, FAIA.
What’s the one question you wish we had asked (and the answer to that question)?
You asked a lot—maybe what brings you joy? It is the sound of my daughters laughing.
What does winning the Edward C. Kemper Award mean to you?
It is remarkable to have the chance to speak about change and impact to AIA and the next generation of leaders. My hope and dream is that we will become climate activists and fight for the protection of our planet and our ecosystem. It is remarkable that the silver lining of COVID-19 is the reduction of carbon and pollution around the world. I hope we can learn from that and change our behaviors for the good. It inspires me to do more—and find places that I can help make a difference.
