Career Cheat Code
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Career Cheat Code
085 | From Architect To Builder of Impact w/ Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli
One pebble can create countless ripples—and this episode follows the journey of Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli who’s done exactly that. From Singapore to North Carolina, architecture studios to unexpected sales roles, and a decade inside a rocket-ship design firm, the path winds through public service at NYC EDC and executive leadership at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Now, that journey culminates in a new strategy practice helping nonprofits, museums, and campuses plan, fund, and deliver capital projects that truly transform communities. At the core of every chapter is one question: How can institutions be more useful? We explore themes of equity, climate resilience, and elevating new voices—all in service of creating places that matter.
Things we cover:
- Why capital projects shape public life and access
- How the Met’s $2B program advanced equity and climate priorities
- Selecting architects beyond the usual shortlist
- Lessons from sales, procurement, and negotiation
- Public service as a lever for middle-class jobs
- Salary transparency, trade-offs, and leverage
- Teaching as a platform for opening the “black box”
- Launching a mission-driven firm and curating a values-based team
Disclaimer:
The views shared on Career Cheat Code are those of the guests and don’t reflect the host or any affiliated organizations. This podcast is for inspiration and information, highlighting unique career journeys to help you define success and take your next step.
If you enjoyed this episode, please like, rate, and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you’re using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. For more #CareerCheatCode, visit linktr.ee/careercheatcode.
Host - Radhy Miranda
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And when I think about my own life, and then I reflect on my own my parents' lives, you know, what brought us to this country, right? I was born in Singapore. My mother is Chinese, my father's Indian, and we end up in North Carolina when I'm five years old. Why? Well, because my father, who was a minister, a Methodist minister in Singapore, is giving some lecture about family values. And it so happens that the vice provost of Duke University is in the audience, likes what my father has to say, has several meetings with him, and writes him an acceptance note to Duke University on hotel stationery, that sort of thing. You know? Like that's insane. When you think about the the pebble that you drop in a pond, that ripple effect is in is kind of immense, right? And it speaks of the power we have to change other people's lives in really profound ways.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to Career G Code. In this podcast, you'll hear how everyday people impact the world through their careers. Learn about their journey, career hacks, and obstacles along the way. Whether you're already having the impact you want or are searching for it, this is the podcast for you. All right.
SPEAKER_00:Jalen, welcome to Career G Code. Oh, I it's a real privilege to be here with you. And I know we've been trying to do this for quite some time. So it's delighted.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. But I think the timing has aligned perfectly. It's at the right time in both of these journeys. Um, but let's dive right in, man. Let's tell the world what it is you do for a living.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. So uh I am the founder and CEO of Jalen Capital Projects. It's a strategy firm that is dedicated to and supports nonprofits, museums primarily, academic institutions, all of whom are embarking on their own transformative capital projects. And a capital project is a fancy term for design and construction of a building or buildings essentially. And our job is to help those institutions raise money and align the sources and the uses of the funds in this era of severely limited capital. So it's a beast, but it's a lot of fun to do. That's awesome. How long have you been doing this? Uh we launched this firm nine months ago. Okay. Nine months ago. And now we are two offices. We have one in New York, one in Los Angeles, and there's about a dozen of us or so. Holy smokes. That's rapid growth. I that's what people tell me. And uh I don't know. We, you know, I no entire frame of reference. You hear stories of startups, and you hear people raising tremendous funds, and all of a sudden there are hundreds of people within 12 months or whatever. But I I know as an outfit, you know, that's just started, we've taken on no debt, and we're working with great clients. I feel very blessed to be doing this. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, as someone who also launched his own company in 2025, it's still one ratty operating in this organization. Actually, that's not true. I've had some people come in and do some part-time work. Nonetheless, we don't have that in different places. So I love to see the growth. I appreciate how rapid it is. Let's work backwards from there. Let's uh let's talk about why you launched this organization.
SPEAKER_00:You you know, it's a that's a great question. I should have been prepared for it. I'm not prepared to answer the question because it's a potpourri of things. And I and I think, you know, in no particular order, at some moment you say to yourself, I'd really love to try being the boss. Right? You have a sense of yourself, you you start to develop a network, you have your own perspective and a and a set of values that are apparently useful to others and potentially, you know, to institutions or whom whomever. It's a little bit of luck. You have folks who start calling you and say, hey, would you be interested in helping us? And you maybe have a day job like I did, then you you start to consider maybe this is the moment. I'm very lucky because I have an incredible partner and my wife, and she helped enable it too, right? I mean, there's all of these factors that come into play. And she says, okay, maybe this is the moment where you have to go try and do something yourself. And maybe that way we can have a little bit more time and a little bit more money, but mostly time, so that we can spend it with our family. I don't know. It's a it's a whole mix of different things, I guess. Okay, so what were you doing before you launched this company? So prior to this, I was the vice president of Capital Projects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And that role was essentially about overseeing the collection of architecture that we had at the museum. The Met is roughly 150 years old. It's been in Central Park for nearly 140 of those years, and over time it evolved into a campus of something like 21 buildings. And my job was to care for and add to that collection of buildings, to renovate and uh the galleries, to build new infrastructure, to take care of the objects that it houses through the buildings. And over that time, while I was there, we created an entire department, probably the largest Capital Projects internal department in the world at a museum, and roughly 20 folks or so from a department that was about three people when I started there. And the overall size of the program was nearly$2 billion across probably, I would say, 15 to 20 years or so. And the entire visioning and then implementation of that program was something that I had the privilege of overseeing.
SPEAKER_01:Holy smokes. How does one even get to that type of role, right? Like what kind of background do you do you have to be able to manage these large-scale projects that are staples for New York City, right? Like this, these are like the Met and the organizations that you've worked on and the projects that you've worked on, because I know some of your background. Like these are these are places that people fly to New York City to see, right? This is these are tourist attractions, these are fabrics of New York, these are some of the reasons why we appreciate the culture and the history that comes with New York City, right? Like, how do like is this something that you've always wanted to get into, or like what brings you to to like all of this?
SPEAKER_00:Wow, that's a lot of questions to unpack. And it's it's uh how do I do this in a way that's uh linear? It's hard because it's not linear, right? And the question of how I got there, the question of you know, how do you make a difference in a place like that once you get there? What's one's backgrounds? Did I aspire to go there in the first place? Did I have the Met ever in my sights? They're all really great questions. So before the Met, I was with you. This is how we met at the City's Economic Development Corporation. And I don't know how you found it, but I I often say it's still one of the most significant highlights of my career to be a public servant. And the city's economic development corporation, I don't know how you would describe it. I would say that it, you know, essentially wields real estate and the built environment for the benefit of our people. Absolutely. And it is essentially the public real estate development wing for the city of New York. Absolutely. And so, you know, how we spent the money, what kinds of spaces we created were all about two primary topics in my mind. And I love to hear what you think they were, but it was about climate resiliency, preparing us for the inevitable, and it was about socioeconomic equity through job creation, through how we spent resources, uh, and to create the kind of spaces that maybe the private sector normally or uh usually wouldn't necessarily do because of short-term returns aren't there for it.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And I think you and I had very different roles at a place like Economic Development Corporation. We'll get back to the work that you were doing under the back. I'm just but for right now, you know, I think at the New York City Economic Development Corporation Corporation, my role was really to align with what community needs and interests were at the time and what government officials, everything from your council members to Congress members for presidents, right? Kind of what they saw, and marry that with the visions of both the administration and EDC at the time, right? Where like folks at EDC have full-time jobs to think about what the resiliency of New York City is gonna look like in 30, 40, 50 years, and what how to bring business attraction in a way that makes sense and it's equitable and all the things. There are folks on the ground that are like, well, what does that mean for me today? And how is that going to impact my children, right? So, like, I think some of my job was to bring all that together and help people talk to each other and and work together. And you and I had you know really had some some of that good synergy of how this works together well when we did some work over in Sunset Park, when you can have a vision for a thing, have partners that are all coming to the table, and then invite community voices as well to be part of the process. I think we did that really well in some of the work over at Censor Park, specifically as we think about terminal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, of the community for the community. And I love this idea that you know a robust middle class is required or necessary for a functional democracy. And a robust middle class is one dedicated to making things, is is getting compensated fairly for that. And that you need a large, robust middle class where everybody feels there's a way forward for themselves and their children in order to maintain the vitality and the endurance of a democracy, in order to challenge the natural tendencies we have to get tribal, right? And so this related to the Met, I was really happy at the EDC because we had a really wonderful balance to quality of life, and we were making a difference for people. And I got a random call from a headhunter that was like, hey, you know, we think you might be a really great fit for the Met. And till today, my wife and I laugh about this because I said no. And in retrospect, when I tell people that, they go, Are you crazy? This is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's the number one museum in the country. It's one of the largest museums in the world. You know, the collection spans two million objects and is a flagship of our cultural understanding of humanity, you know, and represents a certain set of values, not just of New York and the country, but of who we are as a species. And I said, no, you know, I'm cool because I'm on the front lines of engaging the most critical issues of our time. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to alter the conversation around the dining room table with my kids. And there we could, I was finally able to talk about issues of climate change and issues of equity and manufacturing, jobs, and wages, and so forth. And what happened is, you know, the headhunter called back and said, Hey, listen, and now I understand they probably, you know, thought, who says no to the men? And they said, just just come and meet the CEO of the museum, Dan Weiss. Uh, just have one conversation with him. Um, and then you can decide, you know, this is not the right fit for you. Okay, that's cool. So I said, All right, sure, I'll do that. And this gets back to an early conversation you are and I were having about these moments in one's trajectory, which is nonlinear, where you might have the opportunity to meet somebody or a champion, somebody who's gonna make you better, right? You want to be surrounded by people. One of the questions I like to ask myself or of others who are thinking about a pivot in their career is well, who do you imagine being surrounded by? Less what you're doing, but who are the people you're gonna be with? And uh I met Dan, and I have to be honest, I did a little bit of research on him prior. He's he was uh two-time uh president of several universities, written many books. I read one of his books before I got on the call with him, and I listened to his interviews and I and I resonated with his vocabulary, his lexicon, the the his values. And I said, I think this is something who can make me better. And I got on the call with him, and he and I now joke about it, but within minutes, we had already made the decision about one another that he was somebody I wanted to work with, and vice versa. And we were, I was given an hour for this interview, and I it was done in I don't know, 27 minutes. And I got a call from the headhunter, and he goes, you know, when you have an hour with the CEO of the Met, you take the hour. You know, and he says, But for whatever reason it seemed to work for the both of you, because he's thrilled and you're thrilled. So that that's the primary reason why I actually went to the Met was not because of the institution alone, but was because I said this is somebody who can make me better. And uh I I began to recognize that the Met as a platform actually had a farther reach than the EDC did. So the things that you and I were doing constantly privileging uh socioeconomic equity, bringing new voices to the table, you know, uh supporting small businesses. We were doing that all the time. But after I started doing that at the Met, all of a sudden it would appear in the New York Times. You know, uh uh it was a huge megaphone, a big platform for a set of values that I thought were really critical for uh for us to uh navigate for our children.
SPEAKER_01:That's so interesting, right? Because you would imagine geographically, the New York City Economic Development Corporation covers every corner of New York City. There's probably more of a spotlight megaphone, all those things, right? And the resources of the city. But when you look at a place like the Met, I think it's part of it, it's just that globally renowned brand that's attached to it. Um, and the fact that it's not government-owned, right? So it's not a it's not a government entity that basically should be doing the right things. It is a private or a nonprofit organization that is doing it because it is the right thing to do in that in those ways.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, totally. Exactly. And I think that, you know, I had developed, I had started to hone a perspective about what was important to me and and where I could find my place uh in the world. And it goes back to those two issues again around climate change and equity and this idea of usefulness. And I asked myself the question well, in what ways is a museum useful in this current moment? Because traditionally, museums, their role are is two things. It's to care for the collection that they're housing, right? The history of humanity told through the things that we make, and it's the display of those things for education purposes. But the question for that institution, for museums, and actually more broadly for institutions generally, is that enough today, given everything that we're facing? And my answer is actually no, it's not. So, what is it about what I do through design and construction that could help the museum participate in those conversations to be useful? And that's how that capital program developed at the Met, and it's a particular perspective, right? To bring uh new artists, I call them artists, but they're architects. My job is to curate the list of architects who would engage our projects and lead them. Not the typical folks, uh folks who come from different backgrounds, different stories, folks who normally would never be looked at for a commission at a museum such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And then to show that a museum like that could make bold choices and then sustain them and support those decisions, it became a roadmap for other institutions seeking to be bold also and to address those particular issues. And it's that's how it spiraled eventually into the into the start of Jalen Capital projects.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Tell me more about in your time at the Met, was there a specific project that you were part of that you know you were really proud you were able to get through get off the ground or get through the finish line while you were there and and what was your role in that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a great question. I I mean they're all you know, across the the the$2 billion program, we were going to alter nearly a quarter of the museum's spaces. And if you think about it, the museum is two million square feet. It's the size of the Empire State Building, for example. Only half of that, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, which is close to 4 million, but it's still really large. And and I mentioned the Brooklyn Army Terminal for your listeners because it's something that Raddy and I worked on together, that you and I engaged on. It required a community of architects and artisans to engage the work. In other words, it wasn't just one architect, there were there were a dozen projects that were needed to be done. Because in truth, it's it's a campus. It's like a university or college. It's just that it's not spread out with a bunch of open space between the buildings. All the buildings are cramped together. But could you imagine you're a campus of 21 buildings if you were to put the Met and rank it against the other universities and college in New York, something like the seventh largest or something in in New York? And so there's a tremendous amount of work. And we have to catch up, especially because of the way in which the climate has been changing, too. The assault on our buildings is significantly different now than even five years ago. Meaning the intensity of the rainfall and so forth, that the the swings in temperature are significant, putting a huge stress on our infrastructure. So we had to move faster. And so what we did was develop a program where we brought new voices, not the typical architects or artists that you would bring. And there's nothing wrong with that. But what was at stake was this idea of breaking cycles of inequity. That if we could show that we could bring people who normally wouldn't be looked at for commissions like this, because they were seen as highly risky, that maybe we could bring a new set of values to the table. And so we ended up at the end of the nearly five years that I was there with a community of architects that were unlike anything another institution was doing in the world, actually. We had Frida Escobedo, who at the time being commissioned for the Tang Wing, 130,000 square feet or so, and nearly$500 million, was 43 years old, perhaps, around that. She was in her low 40s. Nadair Tarrani for another project, the ancient uh West Asian and Cyprus galleries. Uh, someone who had traditionally not done a project within an institution like that. Um, we had uh Nathan uh uh uh Rich and Miriam Peterson as well, another uh younger firm that brought a different perspective to the galleries and so forth. So that that that was extremely exciting to be able to work within the institution, with the curators, with the administrative staff, with the board to articulate a vision and to say this is the way in which cultural institutions need to go, and we should lead, not follow. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And then your role there, just to make sure I'm clear, as the VP of Capital Projects, is to both have help shape what that vision could be, think about who these commit who should be commissioned to be part of this, right? And then manage that process and that project going forward.
SPEAKER_00:Correct. Exactly. So our job is everything from determining what the projects even are or should be, sequencing them so that they minimize disruption to the institution, but also acknowledge the priorities. You know, sometimes it's about visitor experience, sometimes it's about infrastructure and energy and so forth, sometimes it's about the galleries. It's then determining what is the cost of those projects. And then it's who is the team, and then it's managing that spend all the way through to the moment the galleries or the whatever it is you're working on is done and open to the public.
SPEAKER_01:So a lot of responsibility, but that makes sense because you're as the in-house person, you're basically overseeing the process and bringing in the right partners to then push things through. That that makes all the sense in the world as someone that may be one of our listeners is like, well, what are you what are you what are you doing there? What is your like what how do you how does this all come together? Let me ask you a question, Jalen. Is like a VP of Capital Projects or managing Capital Projects, is this what you always wanted to do for a living?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, wow. Good question. Um or rather, I didn't I didn't know this was an option. And I suppose this is the opportunity to tell the story of being educated as an architect. Uh and I went to a vocational high school, and that's when I got first exposed to uh architecture. And because we were drafting already, right? We were juniors and seniors in high school. We were being taught the automotive trades, culinary arts, construction. Because the expectation in this community that I grew up in, and there's such tremendous virtue in this, is that many of us would go back into the community in the trades, that not all of us were meant necessarily for higher education. And that actually is okay, especially if we compensate our trades and our artisans the way they should be. It's an incredible, viable, wonderful way of life. But I did go on to higher education and I applied to be an architect, to architecture programs. So I went to Berkeley, did that as undergrad, didn't know what to do with myself, applied to grad school, got to Harvard, went there, graduated, got did my first sort of internship and realized I didn't want to be an architect. Imagine going through eight years of schooling and then coming to that realization that I didn't want to draw in front of a computer or on a computer. And I don't know if I could have done anything differently to have come to a different conclusion. And I don't know that I needed to, given where I've ended up, it's okay. And only now can I say with some reflection, I didn't want to be uh practicing as an architect in that way. But it didn't mean that I didn't love architecture and didn't want to advocate for it. And I love buildings because look, when art historians study a society, one of the things they look at, one of the major artifacts that they study, is a building. Our buildings tell us a tremendous amount about who we are, who we were, the practices of the time, how a culture or a people situated themselves in the universe, how they derived meaning, what the rituals are, how they organized their society, right? Uh how they made things, the classes, the stratification, uh, the economies, all of it. The buildings tell you about the entire ecosystem. And then they symbolize a people's aspirations as well. So they are incredibly potent and relevant uh works of art at this at this at a significant scale, and they can illustrate who we are and our values. And I love that about buildings. And and they still, till today for me, engage all the most critical issues that we've been talking about, right? And so uh what I discovered was that there was a different form of advocacy that I didn't have to practice as an architect to support the built environment and all the difference that it can make.
SPEAKER_01:And that's huge, right? Because it could be very discouraging to go through undergrad, grad school, get to the end where you're like, yes, I am now an architect. First internship, and now it's like, wait, I don't know if I like this, right? So that highlights that highlights to me, one, the importance of internships, right? Like to get out and do the thing that you think in your head makes sense and just try it out and see if that's something real. Um, that's happened to me before. I've when I was in college, I for some reason thought marketing was my thing, even though I don't know how to draw, I don't know how to like be a I'm not a visual person, but like I was watching Mad Men at the time, and I was like, I'm gonna be Don Draper, that makes sense. And and then I just shadowed someone on Wall Street for one day, and I was like, yeah, I think I'm cool on all this, actually. I don't I don't know that this is necessarily for me, but there's the value in internships, right? And then putting yourself in a situation to exploit to experience it. But then in your case, to be able to turn what could have been a really almost heartbreaking moment, right, into how do I now apply what I have learned in some other capacity, right? And I think for me, that's part of the value of the show is showcasing that just because you study architecture does not mean you're an architect. Just because you study accounting does not mean you have to be an accountant. Um, you can put these skill sets to use in so many different ways, right? How did you go from that moment to then kind of realizing how else you can apply these skill sets, but not directly be an architect?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right. That and that's the right question. I think. And look, I I can only answer this now in the way that I've been answering it because of reflection, and it's been over 20 years since that moment for me. As if this has been, and we've talked about this a straight trajectory, but it hasn't been. And it's only been recently that I've even settled into this idea of what I'm doing. And and so the question of, well, how did I get there? You know, I've been reflecting on this a bit. There's this one narrative that folks always tell where you know they willed it, they worked really hard, there's genius, even if they don't say it's genius, you know. But I I think there's some real merit and virtue to talk about it relative to to the kindness of others, actually. Some people to call it luck, some people say it's about being in the right place and the right time. But there's a profound power in this idea that you can alter and change another person's life, and you don't know how that happens or takes shape yet. And when I think about my own life, and then I reflect on my own, my my parents' lives, you know, what brought us to this country, right? I was born in Singapore. My mother is Chinese, my father's Indian, and we end up in North Carolina when I'm five years old. Why? Well, because my father, who was a minister, a Methodist minister in Singapore, is giving some lecture about family values, and it so happens that the vice provost of Duke University is in the audience, likes what my father has to say, has several meetings with him, and writes him an acceptance note to Duke University on hotel stationery, that sort of thing. You know? Like that's insane. When you think about the the the pebble that you drop in a pond, that ripple effect is in is kind of immense, right? And it speaks to the power we have to change other people's lives in really profound ways. But it doesn't end there, right? He he comes on, he's given the chance to come over, but Duke at the time didn't pay for the rest of us to go with it. And this tragic story of a mother and father loses uh their young son, their young child, and they wanted to bury him, but no Christian minister would bury their child because the child wasn't baptized. And my father said, Of course I'll bury your child. Like that is that is what we are meant to do. And it turns out that, you know, in their gratefulness, they were, I guess, a fairly wealthy family. And when they found out that his kids, myself, my brother, I think even my my mom were not traveling with my father to America, he paid for our flights to come over. Like, and then you start to you start to to understand, you know, your role relative to others. Where am I going with this? This this has a point. I realize I don't want to be an architect, but I'm not sure how. And I remember talking to my wife, Juliet, one day. I was picking up the phone with her. I was going, I don't want this. I don't, this is not what I expected. And a week later or so, for some reason, I get on the phone with this gentleman named Mike Rogers. And uh he's a vice president of sales at this company that's manufacturing houses in Massachusetts. And he just says, you know, how's your weekend? Like, who asks you how your weekend is? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know you, but okay, I'm gonna go on this journey with you. And within minutes, he was able to get my story, you know, and this is an interesting skill that that some people have. And it turns out that he was considering launching a new business service where this company he was working with manufacturing houses in a factory, but they needed to get to a new market. They needed to get to architects actually directly so they can manufacture the houses be being designed by architects, not just go directly to clients, but but a whole new uh sales uh stream. But they couldn't find anybody who could bridge the language between their contractor nature and the architects. You couldn't be salesing, right? You had to actually speak architecture. And he goes. And he just decided that I was the person. And he was like, Why don't you come? I'll teach you, you know, how to uh to launch a business. I'll teach you how to do sales. And I made this mistake. If your listeners are paying attention, he asked me in my first sit-down with him, Well, what are you being paid right now? And I told him, Don't ever do that. Just or just you can hold your answer, right? And I remember what I told him. I said I was being paid$40,000, and this isn't 2005. And I remember seeing this look come over his face. He was so thrilled because he knew he could just destroy that number with a little bit of margin and would be fine. And he offered me 60. And I think I took the job for 65 or something like that. But the point is that was the switch and trajectory. And I was in sales. Wow. Having to learn how to cold call and write emails and meet with people and talk to strangers. I was scared. I was terrified. I was an introvert. Wow. And he he made me work on it and hone in as a craft.
SPEAKER_01:So I I you know I want to reflect on a few things you said there. So one, the power of kindness, right? Your dad doing an act of kindness and how that has paid residuals in a way that I'm sure like he didn't do it to get something back, right? He just said, Of course, I'm gonna bury your child. Like, what are you talking about? Yes, we're gonna, we're gonna make this is the right thing to do. Um, and then that led to the rest of his family not being able to join him in the United States of America in North Carolina and you all landing there and kind of kind of beginning that journey then, right? Um as as young folks. How how old were you when you when you arrived at North Carolina?
SPEAKER_00:I was five.
SPEAKER_01:Five years old. There's a five-year-old kid now in North Carolina. At least you're reunited with your family and you can kind of start this next trajectory, right? And then and I I appreciate stories like this because I'm an immigrant myself, right? And yeah, for me, it's important to highlight the great impact that immigrants can have in this country if given opportunities, right? Like we, I think, have been super model citizens for for this country, right? And I I just appreciate when folks like your father came in and model citizen, doing great things, all the things, great. Then the next generation, you and your family coming in and continuing that legacy of doing great things in this country, right? I also appreciated in what you said just your openness, your open-mindedness when having a conversation with someone, because you're not in sales, so maybe having someone with someone like having a conversation with someone like this doesn't immediately click. But then you start seeing the the gray area, and you're like, wait, I don't want to be an architect. I don't want to be a salesperson, but this is a way to speak to both, and this is a way to like marry the like what are you all trying to get across? I speak the language, let me go talk to them and explain what it is that we're doing and how this can be helpful, beneficial to their jobs. And I think I just find that fascinating that you were open-minded enough to say, let me go on this journey with you and and try to see if I can be a translator, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I and I don't know. I have never really reflected on why it came easily enough to me. It'd be interesting to sort of take that apart and understand, you know, was it just the pay? I'm sure the pay was some of it. Was it the opportunity to travel a little bit? Yeah, because I had to go around the country. It was still in architecture. Yeah, we were we were essentially trying to manufacture modern homes, right, in a factory. And I loved that idea because it was about making beauty and and architecture and quality of life more accessible to more people, right? Because the promise of building something in the factory was that you could do it for less. And so all of a sudden, maybe there was a series of experiences that that someone could have, right? That they could have more glass with a view or or or more spacious room or a high-quality home that they normally couldn't have afforded through traditional ways, but now they can't. So there was something about equity already built into that, which I was very attracted to. And the possibility of reaching more people that way was attractive to me also. Where were they headquartered? They were outside of uh of uh Boston, uh, in a place called Acton. Acton, Massachusetts. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Which makes sense because you were graduating Harvard around that time with your master's. So you were kind of still in that general Massachusetts area, so it made some sense.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's a whole other story of how I was supposed to, you know, Juliet and I were thinking about heading down to New York together to find jobs. And this is another lesson in negotiation because you know, when I asked for a little bit more money, and it seemed like a lot to me at the time, I asked for you know$5,000 more dollars. And Mike said, Well, if I say yes, will you accept a job? And I and I panicked and I said yes. And then, you know, I told Juliet, and understandably, she was so livid with me because she was like, I thought we were supposed to be going to New York together. Uh and like there's a lesson there, you know. First of all, it's not set in stone. Second, go talk to your partner. You know, it's like all these rookie mistakes. Absolutely. Um but you know, anyways, here we are 20 years later, you know, with two kids.
SPEAKER_01:So how long did you stay in that role for?
SPEAKER_00:That's a great uh so three years. And and you know, it what happens is that in in 2008 the market crashes, right? And uh I knew that the writing was on the wall, so I went looking for another job. And that's and I was applying and I ended up uh interviewing at Diller, Scaffidio and Renfro. And Diller Scaffidio and Renfro is, I would say, one of the pre-eminent firms here in this country and and one of our exports as well, meaning that they have a reputation that transcends the boundaries of the United States. They're doing cultural work in Europe as well. They did the Highline, Lincoln Center, the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art. And I joined them as their director of business development. And I don't tell folks that story often because for a long time I was a little bit embarrassed. Because in architecture, sales is a no-no word. You don't talk about sales because it seems uh inauthentic. But that's what it is, essentially. It's a sales position. But I think that Liz hired me in partners, I should ask her, Liz Diller, the the partner, because again, I bridged languages. I I she knew that I was trained as an architect, that I understood their lexicon, and that I had the capacity, potentially, she didn't know for sure, to reach other people and articulate the value of the firm in extroverted ways. And that's what I did. And and I got lucky. Again, it's luck because I joined them before the high line had opened, before Lincoln Center had opened. And so we were only 20 people. And by the time I left, almost 10 years later, we were nearly 120 people. So so I rode the rocket ship. You know, I can't take credit for that. That that's they they were poised uh for it. And I got to experience a lot there through that process.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. That I mean, that's that's a lot of growth, right? And that's again, I think a it's it may seem like these roles are not connected, but there's a linear path, or there is some not a linear path, but there is definitely some overlap in the skill sets, right? So you go to Harvard, you study architecture, now you're able to bridge the knowledge gap and the conversations between sales folks and the work that that organization is doing and architects. Now you're basically hired to do that within an architectural firm in a different context, but still being able to, you know, speak common language and architecture to folks in a way that you appreciate architecture, in a way that you appreciate the skill sets that come with it. The information that you receive is not going to be foreign like it would be to me, right? Like me getting a memo around some of the work that we have to do in our I wouldn't even know where to start, dude. I don't even know if memos is a thing that you'll look at, right? Or just drawings, right? But so yeah, so for me, you know, I think I just find it so remarkable that you're able to really bring that skill set along and continue to grow professionally and think about, you know, right now we're doing this in-house within an architectural firm. How do we how do we get the right clients? How do we get the right projects, right? And I know you said sales is a like bad word in architecture because I'm sure, you know, architects to some degree is like the visual, the artistic mind, right? So bringing in the business side doesn't work, but then you can't get to design the Highline or work on the Highline or work on the MoMA if you don't go after those conversations. So there's a lot of value in that and the projects that come after that.
SPEAKER_00:Entirely. I mean, you need a whole apparatus in place in order to feed the families you're now employing. And it and it's not automatic. And there's tremendous competition out there, and you and you the world is large and and you have to share your story with others. And I got lucky because, again, the nature of the rocket ship, I got to wrap my arms around more and more scope and develop a broader vocabulary. And so then I started negotiating contracts for them and doing fees and traveling and getting work for them in Europe, you know, and and in and in other places, understanding HR issues, operations, you know, balance sheets, financial statements, all of that happened. Because we were also on the front lines of pursuing work. I started to develop an attitude about the requests for proposals that we would receive. And I would start to say to myself, I think there are better ways, if I were a client, to get information for me that would help me as a client understand if you're the right firm. And I also experienced how uh awful some of the uh processes were towards us, meaning that we're still a mom and pop shop. We we were, in fact, an NWBE. And oftentimes these procurement processes that we went through were terribly invasive and assaulting to the financial durability of the practice. And it's not just for us. It's the case across the board. And that started to inform my own perspective about how I would be as a client, right? I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it this way. I wouldn't ask these questions, I wouldn't ask you to do free work, I wouldn't treat you like a commodity and service. I would I would revere your approach and thinking to a project. And that's what informed when I finally got to the EDC, an approach to how we were curating and commissioning all the different services.
SPEAKER_01:So actually, that's a great segue. So, you know, I get a lot of folks that have been in a role five, seven, nine years, right? Like you at this point in your career. You're somewhere for nine years and then you decide to go the public service route. Let's go to the New York City Economic Development Corporation and bring my talents there and my expertise and my perspectives there. Was there a moment that made you, you know, once you once you're somewhere for nine years, you can totally, I'm sure, start to envision the rest of your career in one place, right? Was there a moment that for you made you think about what the next steps could be and why that timing?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So now we can start to get into some dangerous territory. And maybe you'll decide to edit this out. I don't know. You know, we'll we'll see how this goes. Maybe I'll call you up and be like Redding, maybe maybe delete that part.
SPEAKER_01:Just don't say any names and don't say anything that folks are gonna call you about later.
SPEAKER_00:But you know, and it's you're trying to find uh walk a fine line with being vulnerable and transparent with folks and and useful uh to your listeners. And and so I will say this is not about politics, what I'm about to say, therefore. But in 2016, Donald Trump gets elected. And I'm I was so in the bubble of New York that I did not entirely that's not true, that's not even true of this entirely, I didn't see it coming. And maybe a lot of us didn't uh either. But I I I started to just ask the question, what did I miss? And who am I not hearing? And what's the other perspective that I'm not being exposed to? And why am I not engaged in those conversations? You know, what's going on? And so I did a lot of reflection, thinking, it started to also uh force me to consolidate my own approach to the world and my sense of of what could work and not work, and my my values, and I I came to this conclusion, and we should debate it, and we can we could talk about uh about this. That, and this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. When we don't see a way forward for ourselves and our children, we get tribal because it's the it's it's the most effective way to make as much noise as possible. And someone once said this to me, and I don't know if this is true, but it's an attractive idea because it helps me explain certain things. That what enabled, part of what enabled the civil rights movement wasn't just that we were all more enlightened, it's that that actually we there was more to go around. And it's not to say that it wasn't without severe struggle to get to that moment either. But we we got through uh a certain place. Ultimately, one argument is because there's a sense that there was enough to go around. And that when resources are constrained so severely, it gets harder to be generous when it comes to the rights of others that you don't see in your tribe. And because I I was struggling to find a way to explain the linear connection between those moments in time in the 60s and 70s and where we ended up. And everybody was saying, oh, we're just we're regressing and this and that and whatever else. But I didn't think that that actually properly addressed the underlying issues of inequity in society. Four decades of wage stagnation, right? The offshoring of jobs, the gutting of our middle class. And I just said, you know what, I want to participate in that conversation more directly. That that that's what did it. But the path to EDC wasn't straightforward. I decided for the first time to apply what I was doing for everybody else, which was selling them to myself. And I started to just cold call developers because I thought maybe that was the way to go.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_00:Maybe I could move upstream to to where decisions are being made about how we're spending money in the built environment. Right? If I could say, hey, maybe we need to be privileging our local economies, I don't care who you voted for, actually, but what you do is important. You know, masonry, steel, sheet metal, you know, hanging walls, whatever it is, painters, right? Let's let's make sure that we're just taking care of our own, that the this notion of tribe is not specific to ethnic groups, but could be all of the country. And if we do it that way, then we're just looking at the ways in which we're privileging our local craftspeople, right? It's making, you gotta make stuff to have a robust middle class. And you got we can't all be uh uh white-collar uh uh bankers, Wall Street personal wealth managers. Nothing wrong with that. But but actually you need a robust class of people making things, and they need to be revered and they need to be uh compensated appropriately. No developer said yes. They all were like, and I don't know, I met with maybe 20, 25 of them, who whomever would take my calls. I I didn't come directly enough, I didn't have any project management experience, you know, this is a risk-averse industry. I'm sorry. But for whatever reason, I a friend knew someone else at the EDC. I got to meet them. There was a role that was just posted, and they said, maybe you should apply for that. And that's it. You know, and and for I will forever be grateful to the EDC and to the people who were there to take that risk on me because nobody else did. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:I think, you know, I I think that that's one of those moments, right? Where like once 2016 happens and you're in your field for you know over 10 years at that point, it's just an inflection point of like, girl, how do I listen differently? What am I missing? How do I like be part of this conversation? What is happening in government, maybe not at the federal level, but what's happening in your city where I live and where I'm you know building my family and all the things. How do I like just participate more in that? So I I appreciate you kind of leaning in in that way. And you showed up at EDC bringing all those talents, bringing all those perspectives, right? And really as a true partner and working for New Yorkers and with New Yorkers there. So, you know, I definitely echo your your gratitude for EDC. I think I've learned so much there. Um, and the people there are just freaking brilliant, honestly. Like the folks that are still there, the alumni of EDC, all the things, you know, it's just folks, it's just such a a place that that dedicates their careers to to New Yorkers. Um, so it's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, bound by public service and this sense of uh bringing balance to our our our nature, actually.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So you also do something else. You tend to teach people things who are an adjunct professor of sorts. Tell me more about when did you start doing that and why why do you feel like that's important to do?
SPEAKER_00:So I I I love teaching. I find it to be my happy place. In fact, this I this this consulting firm that I've started is in my mind actually just an extension of teaching and sharing knowledge with others. After I graduated, I had the chance to teach a little bit at Parsons, and I was teaching in their business administration program, and it was wonderful and it was rewarding. But then attention turned to just life and and and working. At some moment, I realized, you know, I think I have just enough perspective to share with folks again, and I wanted to get back to that place, and again had the real luck, the kindness of others, the belief from others, and the opportunity, therefore. And so simultaneously I was given the chance to teach at both the Cooper Union and at Harvard, and and the course is on the history and future of the art museum. But really, the art museum is used as a lens with which to look at cultural institutions more broadly, their relevance, their usefulness again, and and our trajectory as a society, and the role of those institutions in that trajectory. And the particular set of values, not just that we should reflect, but that we should espouse. So that's been such a highlight for me during this last year. It's a sacred space for me, this relationship with students. They give me so much uh energy and meaning and hope. It's a wonderful place to be with them.
SPEAKER_01:So, you know, one of the things that we like to get across at within career treat code conversations is how much money can folks make in these fields? And I think you're a good example of this because you've already shared early on in your career, going from like 40 grand and making the mistake of telling your next employer exactly what you were making to the making 65 grand, right? But then as someone that has done it within an in-house architectural firm, public service, uh anchor institution like the Matt, right? Like, how much money can folks make generally in these fields?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, great. And you know, this is uh there's a lesson in this. And now let's see, how much courage do I have to share? Uh one of my one of the lectures that I give that the students seem to enjoy, I map out my trajectory, but uh I I also show, I try to show the the the salary as I go along to them. And one of the things that I do is whenever I talk about institutions, I do org charts and I then also help them understand what people make because information is power, and all of that kind of information is often either obfuscated, hidden, or or just uh uh held very tightly right from them. And so they they're not in a position to understand the value as it's translated to from income to the roles. And part of the story to them is where it fluctuates tremendously as well, meaning that when I went from the prefab manufacturing company at Acton, where I started at 65, but I ended after three years at$120,000. Because you're in sales, and that's the other thing you learn. When you're in sales and if you're the rainmaker, you have leverage. Same no matter what. If you're a partner at a firm, it's because it's likely due to you bringing in work. You have to bring in work, right? And when I went from$120,000 to Diller, it was to$85,000. So I took a pay cut. But I remember Mike, my first boss, and by the way, we're gonna loop around to this because Mike is now with me again 20 years later, and it's a kind of amazing moment for me. He gave me great advice, and he said, you know, he anticipated the rocket ship. He was like, This is a this is a firm that is poised. You're gonna learn a lot, and as they grow, you're gonna have the chance to expand your vocabulary. It's like, and he goes, at your age, it seems like a huge cut, but it's not. You will figure it out and make it work. Go to the right place, you know, lean into the name brand. So I went. And over the course of 10 years, by the time I left as an associate principal, I was making several hundred thousand to go to the EDC, where even as a vice president, my pay was cut in half. No choice. Right? Yeah, yeah. Uh but that was an incredible moment where, you know, again, probably if someone were to ask me, what is the most critical decision that you ever made in the trajectories that helped your trajectories, it was my life partner. It's my wife all the way, right? I got I chose the right partner. And you know what? I didn't choose her, she chose me. I got lucky. And she enabled that again. And it wasn't without difficulty. We had to tap our 401k. There were some moments that were not easy, but we learned who we were as a couple, even in that. And it grew, didn't grow too much. You know, it was 150,000 or so when I was senior vice president at the Met. I think sorry, at the EDC. And the Met, I can tell you, because it's public.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_00:You go to the Form 990, you can look it up. That's what I tell my students. You should see them. They're all on their computers. They start Form 990, everything. And uh my starting salary was 350, right? And then by the time I left, it was over four, something like that. Uh, and now we're doing our own thing. And it's less again. It's less. It's not more, it's less. Doing doing our own venture. But that's okay.
SPEAKER_01:Because you see the vision, you see the trajectory, you realize this is basically bringing you back to those early days when you're like, it's a poised firm, stay the course, and you'll get right back up there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and if not, what I do have is flexibility and time, right? We're after time, and there's an there's a really nice balance that's happened. And I do believe that if you make just enough to provide for your family and both food and education, you have your health and you have time, you're 99% there to happiness. You really are. And everything else is just you know, it's marginal, actually. So, but it's hard to articulate that to folks.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned now kind of things coming back full circle with I I I believe his name was Mike. Can you explain how you all are now working together again in some capacity?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So Mike is uh was semi-retiring. So what happened when I was in September of 24, what we were doing at the Met was getting noticed. And I was getting a lot of calls, calls from the British Museum, calls from other institutions all around the world asking questions around how are you doing what you're doing? And would you guide us? And often my answer was, well, I'm happy to just chat with you casually about it, but otherwise no. And well, one museum that was particularly fascinating and interesting and relevant to me, and it's the Allentown Art Museum. So the Allentown Art Museum starts speaking to me sometime in September of 2024, and then shortly thereafter, the Art Institute of Chicago also. And suddenly I had these two institutions. And the Allentown Art Museum is particularly fascinating because if you know anything about the history of that area in Pennsylvania, right, adjacent to Bethlehem, Bethlehem steel, Allentown about textiles, silk, the heart, one of the hearts of industrial uh strength, not just in the United States, but in the world. And now is having to pivot their economies. What is the role of a cultural institution in a place like that? Right. How is it relevant to folks? How does it provide a sense of a way forward? And how does it bring people together? Wow, on the front lines, right, of what's happening for us right now. I'm sure the Met is also immensely relevant, but this is right there in the heart of it. And the architecture firm brought me into it and said, you know, we think you could be really helpful to them. And that's how the conversation started. Where am I going with this? It started to snowball, right? And I said, I think I can go, I make a go at this. I decided to make a go at it. And then shortly thereafter, I end up uh uh speaking to the Boys and Girls Club in Queens, and they're embarking on the largest boys and girls club in the country. And then shortly thereafter, there's work that starts happening in Los Angeles, and it's just just the network that's happened over time. And when people found out that I was leaving and I was doing this, I started getting calls. It started to grow. And I was talking and I stay in touch with Mike and I talked to Mike, and I'm like, I said to Mike, I think there's something here, man. I think it's growing. And he had just sold his last company and was kind of ready to chill out. He calls me up the next day and he goes, I think I want to be part of this. I think I can help you. I think I can help you. And we decided to do that journey together. So now all of a sudden I have a mentor, my mentor when I from 20 years ago, he's still to me very important and a mentor. But uh, it's fascinating that technically he's working for me. But I don't see it that way, he doesn't see it that way, right? It's it's more that he's in my life again, which is really great. And uh in fact, the people in the company are folks comprised of folks from my life and various different parts. They're all being assembled and brought together, and I tell you, one of the most incredible blessings of all of this is that I I get to have a say, I get to curate that that community of people who I adore and care for greatly, and I'm just surrounded by them. And so life is rich. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Are there any forms of media that have helped guide you personally or professionally? This can be books, podcasts, subscriptions, whatever you deem appropriate that you think some of our listeners should try to check out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that that's a tough question. Because a lot of the media that I engage now is to help me relax and distract me. Which is fine.
SPEAKER_01:If it's if it's helpful in that way, that's fine too. If it brings me that piece, if it's a book, a novel, a podcast, uh whatever that has actually helped you disconnect, that maybe would help others. Or TV show, whatever that is.
SPEAKER_00:If you were to follow my Instagram and look at you know, like who it is that I'm now like my feed, it's filled with two things. It's filled with um puppies and golden retrievers specifically, because the kids are lobbying hard for one, and me too. We've got one last holdout, if I can convince Juliet that we're there. And then it's uh comedy, it's actually stand up comedy. And I find it to be an incredible source of wisdom and comfort. There's implicit criticism of the boundaries and the fringes, it's a platform. Or social commentary, uh reflection, but in in some ways uh in a very accessible way, manner. So actually, comedy has been a really wonderful place for me to just hang out and watch uh and listen to. What are you most proud of in your career? I should have anticipated that question. I think that I know what the answer is. I wonder if I can articulate it correctly. It's in the the the difference that I'm I hope I'm making in the lives of the people directly around me. And I don't even mean clients, I mean the people that I work with. That's a clan, that's a that's another tribe, that's another uh community. And I know that folks say it's not family, but the truth of it is you spend more time with these people than you do with your family. And the same tenets and that are required for a functional relationship with your partner apply to your relationships to the people you work with. That's right. Because you want to get to that place of easy communication, vulnerability, transparency, you have to build trust so that you can get to that place to really engage and solve problems quickly. You you have to invest in the relationships.
SPEAKER_01:Is there anything else we haven't discussed today that the world should know about, Jalen?
SPEAKER_00:Oh no, I don't know, man. Enough. I I I was going back to the first comment I was making earlier, and I don't know when I made it to you before we formally started or not. I'm very I was very hesitant to join you because I genuinely believe that there are these profound moments of kindness from others that have enabled my trajectory more so than myself. And I didn't know, you know, if in the end there was anything insightful for me to say that you haven't already covered, by the way, with your 80 plus uh discussions with folks and the incredible sweeping array of conversations you've already had. You know, what way could I be possibly relevant or useful to others? But in the end, it's an opportunity to be reflected a little bit, take some risks, I suppose. We'll see.
SPEAKER_01:And I think just the same way that some of those stories resonated with you, this story will resonate with others. Everyone's path is different, and everyone's starting point and point at where we discuss, where we have this conversation is different. So I I appreciate you taking the time to come and share some of your path, your wisdom, things that you've learned along along the way, and just being open about resources, ways to get information, all of the things. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thanks for having me. You're you're doing incredible, meaningful work for others, and it's it's it's generous. So thank you for having me, truly. Thank you. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and believe on the mission we're on, please like, rate, and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you're using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Career Cheat Code and tell us people or careers you would like to see highlighted. See you next week with some more cheat codes. Peace.
