As a high-school math whiz in Lagos, Nigeria, Bolanle Williams-Olley was primed for her next chapter, studying computer engineering at the City University of New York’s Hunter College. At the time, “there were not a lot of Black girls doing math,” recalls the CFO and co-owner of New York-based architecture and design practice Mancini Duffy, “so I made sure I found the right people who could challenge me in terms of thinking.”
Early on, it was clear to Williams-Olley that she was better suited to Hunter’s Accelerated bachelor’s/master’s math and applied math program, which prepared her for the vital, yet often overlooked, financial realm of architecture. “You can have all those nice buildings but if you have no money, then you have no business,” she says.
Her first job, as a junior project accountant at HLW, coincided with the Great Recession in the late 2000s, allowing Williams-Olley to take on responsibilities typically presided over by her more senior colleagues, including exploring how numbers helped project managers do their jobs better.
The timeless and elegant club lounge at the Langham New York, a partnership with Richmond International
Then, she settled into the rigorous environment of architecture firm SOM, until she was tapped by Mancini Duffy in 2017 for the firm’s controller role. Strategically mulling over short- and long-term changes for the company, Williams-Olley acted as CFO, “even though I was afraid to get that title,” she admits. A year later, she embraced it. And in 2019, she became a co-owner of the firm.
Mancini Duffy has helmed recent hospitality projects like the Tempo by Hilton New York Times Square as part of the TSX Broadway development, the Boston outpost of Spanish restaurant Boqueria, and the revamp of a Chicago Starbucks. Other spaces, including the retail and event hub for lifestyle brand Extra Butter in Queens’ Long Island City neighborhood and the Omnicom Group office in Melville, New York, are also part of the firm’s wide-ranging portfolio. In 2022, the company expanded into healthcare with Mancini Duffy’s acquisition of Gertler & Wente Architects.
When Williams-Olley joined, it was a pivotal time for Mancini Duffy, which was strengthening its connection between technology and architecture. This percolating creativity led Williams-Olley to consider new perspectives. “What things can we do in terms of our workflow and our processes to help us deliver our projects differently to our clients? How can we use 3D printing and produce things that can be useful within those projects?” she asks. “I describe Mancini Duffy as a 109-year-old startup. There is a lot of innovation here.”
Acting as architect of record, Mancini Duffy transformed a former bank into the Nine Orchard hotel in New York
Amid the firm’s growth, Williams-Olley remains poised with an unflappable spirit that’s espoused in her 2021 book Build Boldly. She aims to foster a professional atmosphere that sparks dialogue, so employees feel “their voices matter, their ideas will be heard” she says. “I make sure I am patient and that I can explain things with clarity.”
While the U.S. has been home for most of her life, Williams-Olley has never lost touch with her Nigerian roots. She founded the nonprofit SheBuildsLives in 2013, dedicated to providing academic sessions, extracurricular activities, and vocational and digital skills training for Nigerian children in low-income communities and displaced-person camps. Her own trajectory changed upon moving to the U.S., she points out, and she believes education can pull disadvantaged youth out of dire situations.
Nigeria, with its “mashup of different tribes and different languages across the country,” she says, instilled Williams-Olley with an appreciation for diverse backgrounds. Numbers matter, she says, but not as much as people. “You have to think about relationships—how you maintain, nurture, and manage them.”
Mancini Duffy served as executive architect on the Tempo by Hilton Times Square, with interiors by Wimberly Interiors
Custom light fixtures help bring the high ceilings to human scale at Boqueria Seaport in Boston
This article originally appeared in HD’s July 2024 issue.
