ARTICLE
OUT OF THE BOX
ARCHITECTURE BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARRETTE VENTURE GROUP BY YU-NGOK LO
Todd L. Reding
is the president and CEO of Charrette Venture Group. He earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Reding is an Adjunct Lecturer on Entrepreneurialism at the University of Iowa and chair of the board of trustees of Grinnell Regional Medical Center.
Christian Jordan, AIA
is a principal of PJA Architecture in Philadelphia, PA and a co-founder of JAMB Collective. He has been an adjunct professor at Jefferson University's College of Architecture + the Built Environment since 2006 and, for the last three years, has been the AIA YAF Regional Director for Pennsylvania.
I recently received an email in my junk-mail folder titled “Enter the architecture business plan competition.” It immediately got me interested because it was the first time I heard about a competition of this nature. What is this competition all about? I asked myself. My curious nature told me I have to know more about it. So I decided to reach out to the Charrette Venture Group, the company that operates the Architecture Business Plan Competition, and spent some time with its president and CEO, Todd L. Reding, to find out more about the competition. Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): Tell us about Charrette Venture Group. How does the company work? What is the mission of your company? Todd L. Reding (TR): Architects have a tendency to measure success in terms of design quality and visibility. They often miss the opportunity to “design” their businesses to be profitable. Our mission is to help small architecture firms learn how to operate as strong, sustainable, thriving businesses. We provide a full array of services such as marketing, recruiting, branding, businessdevelopment coaching, financial management, etc. to investment partners who want to improve their performance but are too small to realistically bring these services in-house. Our commitment to our partners is in the form of a shared-risk five-year contract where CVG takes a percentage of our partners’ net operating revenue in exchange for full access to our suite of services. If our partners grow, we grow. YL: What prompted the establishment of CVG? TR: We have architectural roots with an entrepreneurial drive. Our founder, Matt Ostanik, AIA, founded two successful technology companies born from his experience working in architectural firms. He observed architects struggling with business priorities, noticing that they might be excellent at design but have difficulty dedicating time to marketing, business development, and staff nurturing.
ABOVE: THE INTERVIEW PROCESS OF THE COMPETITION JUDGING - courtesy of Charrette Venture Group
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CONNECTION
THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JOURNAL OF THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM