Living By Design

DWP CEO Brenton Mauriello has helped build a global business using elegance and simplicity in design.

- Stephen Crowe

Interacting with design is easier for some than others. Many are oblivious to the primary role it plays in every aspect of our lives; others are drawn to it and have visceral reactions to design in its many forms.

Brenton Mauriello is one of the latter. He lives and breathes design as CEO of design worldwide partnership (DWP), a group of companies that have amalgamated to form a single entity seeking to deliver design excellence around the world.

“We have about 350 people in 11 full offices and a few project offices,” he tells The CEO Magazine. “Our head office is in Bangkok; we have very strong operations in Vietnam, Dubai and in Australia across four locations. They’re our key areas. We are also in negotiations with a UK firm right now, with about 30 staff, which is the business size we like.”

Brenton came to DWP through projects he worked on in Bangkok when the company directors approached him to provide business acumen to the overall group.

“At that stage, it was not one group, it was really just an alliance. After the 1997 crash, the directors received advice from Arthur Andersen to foolproof the company in downturns by creating a brand, setting up systems and bringing in like-minded companies,” he explains. “In 2001, they brought in four companies. What I achieved was to reposition a series of unconnected design studios to a unified global architecture and design practice, presenting one common brand identity – what we now call DWP. I originally joined the firm because I saw the potential for business expansion and I have an affinity for design and building.