Melissa Johnston is a design leader with more than two decades of international experience shaping retail, hospitality, workplace, and destination environments.
She specialises in complex and historically sensitive projects, including projects such as the Waldorf Astoria In New York. Her current work ranges from the transformation of a 19th-century warehouse in London’s Square Mile into a new landmark clubhouse for the city, to the delivery of a 120,000-square-meter headquarters for one of the Gulf’s largest sovereign wealth funds.
Much of our lives now unfolds through the digital. Interiors offer a necessary counterpoint—physical, immediate, and felt. My work focuses on shaping experience: influencing behaviour and the ways we live and make meaning.
Before rejoining SOM in 2025 – having first worked with the firm in 2013 – Melissa held executive leadership roles for globally recognized luxury groups in London, Paris, and Milan; guiding architecture, destinations, and brand experience. As a former Chief Design Officer, she stewarded a significant international landbank, shaping the development of large-scale, sustainable destinations.
Melissa designs environments that are experiential, regenerative, and built with meaning and enduring value. Her work brings together carefully considered user experience and clear commercial judgement, aligning design intent with delivery and performance through a disciplined approach that strengthens both project outcomes and client organizations.
