M. KENT TURNER

MY STORY

I completed a Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Illinois in 1973. I moved to St. Louis and joined Pearce Corporation in 1974 where I assumed leadership for the firm’s newly emerging healthcare practice. Over the following six years, we developed a national healthcare practice with major work in 22 states and opened offices in Jacksonville, FL and Chicago. I became President of the firm in 1986, acquired full ownership, and with new partner, George Nikolajevich, rebranded the firm as Pearce Turner Nikolajevich (PTN) in 1987.

PTN merged with Cannon in 1992. The new firm, CannonPTN, had 6 offices with a staff of 220. I served as a Director and Managing Principal for the three PTN offices until 2003.

In 1995, I led the design of the structure and platform for an integrated national healthcare practice and served also as the National Healthcare Director until 2004. During this time, we grew to 700 people in 11 offices and broke into the top 10 US healthcare firms. CannonPTN became CannonDesign.

I became President of CannonDesign as part of a newly formed Executive Leadership Team in 2005 with my primary focus being development of strategies designed to provide competitive distinction to the firm and to advance the voice and authority of the firm through expanded diversification, collaboration, and an overarching conviction for the power and potential of design thinking. The following decade, the firm grew to 17 offices world-wide and a staff of over 1100 including physicians, scientists, social anthropologists, programmers, educators, economists, workplace strategists, product designers, builders, and others in a culture devoted to bringing design solutions to the greatest problems facing our clients and society.

Beginning in 2000, I established the process of annual market-based business planning for the firm overlaid by a five-year comprehensive strategic planning routine. In 2012, I directed a year-long “Brand Summit” with the support of Jim Cramer and Bruce Mau which reexamined the role of design practice in the decade ahead and set the stage for the next generation of an Ideas Based Practice and a new generation of leadership.