Women in Design 2018 - 22
22
Margaret McMahon
St. Regis Astana, Kazakhstan
Senior Vice President and Managing Director
Wimberly Interiors, New York
The summer after she graduated college, Margaret McMahon spent most
of her days "windsurfing and figuring out what I was going to do with my
life." Her original plan of attending law school seemed less exhilarating
than it once had, so her mother proposed a different strategy-seek out
the prominent New York temp agency Kelly Services and try out every
post that sounded interesting.
McMahon studied political science at the State University of New
York and the Danish Institute for International Studies, but she had
also taken art classes, so when Kelly Services presented her with a job
description that required working with matboard, she was intrigued.
The company was a design firm, and her new boss was Trisha Wilson,
the powerhouse behind Wilson Associates.
She cleaned the office, typed out specifications and transmittals,
and made frequent runs for Entenmann's Donuts, but McMahon also
worked on a design presentation for the Bankers Trust office in Cairo
and developed a keen interest in Wilson's residential and hospitality
projects. "[Trisha] saw something in me that I didn't see in myself,"
explains McMahon. "I was a hard worker and craved learning. I loved
everything I got to do." Moving her way up from the bottom, and
earning a certificate in interior design from New York's Parsons School
of Design along the way, McMahon's role at Wilson Associates evolved
into managing director.
She stayed at the company for more than 28 years until 2011,
when an opportunity presented itself that McMahon couldn't refuse:
opening Wimberly Interiors, a New York design studio for WATG, an
architecture firm she long admired. "When you start a new company,
you take chances, and maybe this sounds corny, but you feel born
again," she explains. As senior vice president and managing director,
it's not uncommon for McMahon to spend the same week dashing off
to Colombia to work on the latest Four Seasons in Cartagena and then
to France to put the finishing touches on a sprawling 10-room Parisian
residence.
When McMahon walked through Wilson's door all those years
ago, she never fathomed a jetsetting life. Growing up in Douglaston,
New York, her neighbors were the Curl family. The father headed Pan
Am airlines "and our parents traveled together to places like Kenya,
but never us kids. The only hotel I went to was when I went skiing in
Vermont. I didn't even go on a plane until I was in high school," she
recalls. "Trisha opened up a world to me that I had never been exposed
to. I never thought about how hotels were brought to life before."
Women in Design 2018
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Women in Design 2018
Contents
Women in Design 2018 - Intro
Women in Design 2018 - Cover1
Women in Design 2018 - Cover2
Women in Design 2018 - Contents
Women in Design 2018 - 2
Women in Design 2018 - 3
Women in Design 2018 - 4
Women in Design 2018 - 5
Women in Design 2018 - 6
Women in Design 2018 - 7
Women in Design 2018 - 8
Women in Design 2018 - 9
Women in Design 2018 - 10
Women in Design 2018 - 11
Women in Design 2018 - 12
Women in Design 2018 - 13
Women in Design 2018 - 14
Women in Design 2018 - 15
Women in Design 2018 - 16
Women in Design 2018 - 17
Women in Design 2018 - 18
Women in Design 2018 - 19
Women in Design 2018 - 20
Women in Design 2018 - 21
Women in Design 2018 - 22
Women in Design 2018 - 23
Women in Design 2018 - 24
Women in Design 2018 - 25
Women in Design 2018 - 26
Women in Design 2018 - 27
Women in Design 2018 - 28
Women in Design 2018 - 29
Women in Design 2018 - 30
Women in Design 2018 - 31
Women in Design 2018 - 32
Women in Design 2018 - Cover3
Women in Design 2018 - Cover4
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