Cities for People: Helle Søholt on Her Career with Gehl and Speeding up the Vehicle for Change

By Julia Gamolina

Helle is Founding Partner and CEO of Gehl. She started the company with Professor Jan Gehl in 2000. Through her leadership, strategic and organizational talent, the office has developed a knowledge base and experience portfolio that is respected internationally in the field of urban design and urban development. Over the years of its existence, Gehl has been awarded multiple prizes and recognitions for their contribution to making cities more livable and sustainable around the world. Helle talks to Julia about Gehl’s work in various cities and building up thought leaders around her, advising those just starting their careers to be collaborative.

JG: How did your interest in all things city and built environment first develop?

HS: My first fascination was more with cities - I was fascinated by their complexity, as well as the art and the culture you could experience and all the opportunities that cities could be the symbol of. I grew up in a suburb outside of Copenhagen, and then after high school I moved to London - in Denmark, you have a gap year after high school where you get some work experience to prepare for university. London was the biggest city close to Copenhagen that I could think of. There I worked in finance and insurance during that gap yeare. I wasn’t so thrilled about staying in this field, so I applied to architecture school.

What did you learn both about architecture and about yourself in studying it?

I learned quickly that architecture is about cultural sensitivity, context, and longevity. A building is not just a phenomenon for a short while. The more I started engaging in these ideas, the more I got fascinated by how to grow and manage the complexity of the built world. I decided to move up in scale and switched into urban planning and design, still in architecture school. I felt really happy there and felt that my interests in society and the political organizations that cities are, fascinated me.

I started studying at the Department of Urban Design where Jan Gehl was professor, and was introduced to Philip L. Jacobson Who at the time was a representative of the Valle scholarship & Scandinavian exchange program from the University of Washington in Seattle. When I finished my education in Copenhagen I had the opportunity to move to Seattle and complete another masters degree there.

Helle Søholt on Dronning Louises Bridge in Copenhagen.

Helle with Jan Gehl and Henriette Vamberg in 2000.

What did you learn in Seattle?

I had the opportunity to dive into understanding the deeper aspects of another urban culture, which helped widen my understanding of why the urban patterns in the world are so vastly different from city to city. We also looked at how to engage people in different ways depending on their local culture.

When I came back to Copenhagen, I started doing various projects with Jan. After half a year Jan invited me to start an office with him. We officially started on May 1st in 2000 - twenty years ago this year! I was only twenty-eight at the time, so I moved into setting up a practice and growing it from scratch very quickly in my career.

Where did you guys start?

We started with a very strong point of view. We noticed the so-called “modernist” approach to city planning - separate functions, big programs and buildings, and no focus on the human scale of planning and engagement. Then there was also the phenomenon of delivering large scale development in a political framework in cities.

These two things combined seemed to be producing an outcome that didn’t take people, nor sustainability, into account. We wanted to address the whole planning paradigm and to introduce a new approach that would place people at the core of decision making and designing. Then, in terms of how we got started, we were very fortunate that Jan had a really robust international network, especially within academia, and was able to connect us broadly to people around the world. As soon as we were out there saying, “We are proactively seeking work,” people started coming to us right away.

“...architecture is about cultural sensitivity, context, and longevity. A building is not just a phenomenon for a short while.”

Tell me about the work you’ve been able to do throughout your time at Gehl.

A city like Copenhagen, where we have been positioned and working for 20 years, is a type of city where we have worked across all these scales, from architecture policies, to climate adaptation guidelines for public spaces, to measuring public life in the city and setting targets for that.

Then there is a city like Buenos Aires, where we worked for over two and a half years and had two parallel tracks of work. One was to assist the mayor and all of his 30 secretaries to develop a ten year strategy and framework for how to deliver projects. That was a very high level - process that was management and leadership heavy, especially the process of engaging 130 people across these various departments. For that purpose, a team was present locally in Buenos Aires for a couple of months to gather the evidence, do the analysis, and facilitate all these meetings.

Simultaneously, we were working in a much more tactile, operational way in a local favela, an informal settlement, where the work was more design oriented and focused on providing Public Space Plans for the area. There was also a local team that managed engagement and as a result, we had a really quick implementation of tactile urban projects in the neighborhood, to provide playgrounds for kids, a safer route to school, and access for fire trucks. Our work in Buenos Aires was an example of us being able to help leadership make that linkage to what is happening on the ground at eye level that is impacting people’s everyday lives. When we can work on those two levels, we are at our best because we then utilize our design skills and our ability to think strategically at the same time.

Where are you in your career today?

Today I am more engaged with the overall strategy at Gehl and the long-term thinking - where we are moving as a company and what type of impact we would like to have in the world. I’m engaged with leadership development across the organization and how we best organize ourselves in order to be responsive and available to our clients. I am not involved in the individual projects although I might join a workshop, a presentation, or a client meeting.

Market Street in San Francisco, CA. Photography by Shawn Lani.

Market Street aerial, photography by Diane Bentley Raymond.

How do you define success for yourself and also how do you define success for Gehl?

For Gehl, succeeding is about making cities for people. That has been our purpose all through these twenty years and that still remains our purpose today, even though we have shifted from focusing on delivering a paradigm shift within planning to now focusing on the outcome and making sure that cities are in fact more equitable, healthy, and sustainable places for all. If we can help make sure that more projects and more cities are delivering places where people thrive and can live a high quality of life, while having access to opportunities, protecting natural resources and balancing growth - that would define success as a company.

For me personally, my success criteria is to make sure that I help develop as many thought leaders and doers as possible. Ultimately, I’d like Gehl to operate as a community of thought leaders and makers where there is access to the greatest talent, both in terms of internal collaboration but also in terms of external collaborative structures and networks. This ambition aligns with my personal philosophy - I don’t need to be the queen or the only one seen externally. In fact, for me it's a success criteria that the entire Gehl team is seen as being leaders in our field around the world and contributing to making impact.

What have been some of the biggest challenges for you and how have you worked through them?

Working for a growing organization and growing with the organization is challenging in that you don’t know what you don’t know. I was very young when I started Gehl and have learned to be very open and seek the experience that I think I lack. This has sometimes meant hiring consultants who can help advance certain things or sometimes it has meant putting myself at risk or putting myself out in a position where I might not be so experienced so that I can learn. In the past six years I have been taking on board roles in other organizations - cultural institutions and foundations - and that has enabled me to get an insight into management and governance structures of other organizations. That is now helping me help Gehl grow as a company.

My husband gave me some good advice very early on, “Never be afraid of hiring someone who is better than you.” I repeat that to everyone on my management team today because one of the things that happens sometimes in strong design cultures is that the people that are very good at design, they hire junior people that they can support or manage. We should instead hire the best people and hire people that are also better than us or can help us grow and develop Gehl into new directions. That’s sort of a life lesson that I am still reminding myself of, even today.

“...my success criteria is to make sure that I help develop as many thought leaders and doers as possible.”

The NY office is about 80% women. How does gender play into how you run and how you have built Gehl? Do you think about that?

I think a lot about that. I am sure that some of the leadership, both our approach and our focus on diversity, and the culture in the office is a more feminine culture than you would find in a lot of other types of organizations.

What do you mean?

We have a culture that is about creating cities for people, we are very conscious about wanting to provide a people-first organization. That means an organization where the individual is respected and where you have an opportunity to grow your talent and where the needs of the organization need to be balanced with the needs of the individual.

In other firms that is not always the case and the needs of the company are often put first. We are trying to balance that and not put more stress on the individual so that they can actually deliver a high quality product and a high quality of every day work. Being a woman myself, I also respect the need for daily flexibility. Especially for young women who might also have young children, are especially under pressure in terms of delivering and having a balanced everyday life. So, providing the flexibility in the offices so that you can both have a professional career and a well-functioning family life, that is also something that I have always prioritized. About 60% of people in the Gehl offices are women. When it comes to the leadership team, it’s also pretty much fifty-fifty.

That’s a great example. There are too many firms that are very far behind, especially in 2020.

I totally agree. I want to say though, that I don’t hire people just because they are women. First and foremost, I hire highly talented individuals that are great at what they do. Having said that, I do think that to have a high performing team, you have to have a well-balanced team. Gender balance is one thing. Another thing is cultural background. We have about fifteen different nationalities in Gehl, which is quite a lot when you think about the fact that we are only eighty people. Having that cultural sensitivity towards the communities in which we work is really important. A lot of our staff or team members in Gehl actually have a dual cultural background, such as yourself.

My Siberian background certainly comes in handy [laughs]. Who are you admiring right now?

I’m fascinated by strong women that can be very precise and yet also open-minded about certain things - knowledge or other sort of evidence, while at the same time respectful of the cultures that they are within and the barriers for change. Right now I am reading a couple of books by an American called Catherine Richardson. She is American but has lived in Denmark for twenty years. She is part of the UN Climate Action Board and is one of the leading voices in climate action. She has a very direct way of telling how much - pardon my French - super deep shit we are in while at the same time respecting that things take time and behaviors and cultures need to change. We are looking at a big shift as a sort of fourth industrial revolution that needs to happen and so forth. I respect her open mindedness and her directness.

I am also thinking about the prime minister of New Zealand who is so well articulated and is so respectful of the indigenous people. The way that she handled the terrorist attacks and many more of her softer skills are admirable.

A friend, Hallie DelVillan, and I gave a presentation at the WLS 2019 conference, and we called these skills power skills. They are known as soft skills, which makes it sound less important to some people, but they can be even more important in many instances - especially if a client is choosing between you and another excellent design firm.

They are even more important because you earn the respect of people with them, and you cannot be a leader without respect. Leadership is not about leading, it’s quite the opposite. Leadership is, ironically, about the following of others.

“...we have to speed up the vehicle of change. We can only do that if we join forces.”

What advice do you have for those just starting their careers in the fields of architecture and urban design?

Be collaborative. No architect, no designer, and no urbanist can deliver projects on their own and in solitude. You don’t sit at a table and dream up a project - that’s just not the way things work! Finding that balance where you can both be strong and confident in your own talent, and also be really self-aware of what you don’t know, as well as being frank and open about what you don’t know, is important. The quicker you can be knowledgeable your own values and where you are strong and how you can tap into a creative team, the better.

Also, being a real team member so that you can create change fast is important as well If we want to change the physical environment quickly enough to adapt to the climate changes that are happening, we have to speed up the vehicle of change. We can only do that if we join forces.

Would your advice be any different for women?

No, it’s the same advice. Maybe the one thing I would say to women is just to be yourself and to be courageous. Don’t think that you cannot work in the built environment. Sure it’s a world dominated by men right now, but it’s shifting. If you are a strong individual and you are knowledgeable about what you do, you will be respected for that knowledge and the experience that you bring. We should all trust the professional value that we bring.