Ronnie Belizaire didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming an interior designer. She was in college getting a business degree and had an offer to work full time at a public accounting firm. She had what she called “an early quarter-life crisis” and decided accounting was not her calling.
She Googled “What am I supposed to do with my life” and an aptitude test popped up. Belizaire took five of them and three came back with interior designer as the best profession for her.
“I wanted to bang my head against the wall, because I thought, ‘I don’t want to decorate people’s houses.’ Ultimately, I decided to try to learn more about the profession and cold called people using the phone book. I called and said, ‘Hi, I see you are an interior designer. What do you do everyday?’,” she said.
With the help of those in the profession willing to talk to her, she realized design has the ability to respond to both her creative and analytical skillsets.
“I don’t know if you paid attention to the zodiac signs or not, but I’m a Libra and our symbol is the scales. And I like to believe that I need a profession that gives me both [creative and analytical] equally. I can’t lean too far in either direction and interior design appeared to be that thing for me. So I ended up applying to Florida State University at the time who had a graduate professional master’s degree in interior design,” she said.
In many ways, her career has come full circle. While she was completing her degree, she got involved in the university chapter of the International Interior Design Association and found a group of like-minded students who wanted to immerse themselves in the profession.
As she built a 17-year professional career with more than 5 million square feet of architectural, interiors and industrial projects managed and delivered, she decided to give back to her profession through IIDA. She started by volunteering for IIDA and became IIDA Georgia Chapter President in 2013. She then served as IIDA Foundation Chair from 2017-2019 and most recently as FIIDA Vice President from 2019-2023.
Belizaire was recently appointed president of IIDA’s International Board. She’s come a long way since she was a student confused about her future. She has completed projects for numerous clients, including well-known Fortune 500 companies, helping them transform their organizations through the built environment. And at the same time, she has helped others discover a profession she loves through her work with IIDA.
“When I was relocating to Georgia after the great recession in 2010, I didn’t know anybody here in the industry,” she said. “I didn’t have a job, so I decided to tap into IIDA. At the time, I did not know what I was setting myself up for, which was amazing community opportunities for professional growth.”
IIDA helped Belizaire in her career and she wanted to give back.
“I have a unique opportunity to advocate for equitable and inclusive practices in the built environment,” she said. “And when I say that, I mean oftentimes design is seen as something that’s unattainable by the general masses — large corporations can pay for this or people who are rich can pay for this. But the truth is we all pay for it whether we recognize it or not. And being able to allow people to see that it can be done for them as well and they should seek it out from professionals is something that I think is so important in making sure that they see it as accessible. People should recognize the humanity of what design is able to do. That’s my personal driver.”
Belizaire said she is excited that IIDA is championing equity, diversity and inclusion. The organization recognizes the need to be intentional about its mission to champion equity, diversity and inclusion, she said.
IIDA is working hard to introduce the profession to students, especially in communities that might not be introduced to design. IIDA’s Design Your World is an education pipeline program driven by the mission to build equity and diversity in the design industry, by providing high school students with exposure to the possibilities of a career in design. The inaugural program was launched in 2021 in Chicago in partnership with education organization After School Matters.
“IIDA continues to promote the Design Your World program that was introduced three summers ago that now lives in three cities,” she said. “It is super exciting because underrepresented youth who may not have been exposed to the profession or to the design industry are now getting a summer course that gives them complete exposure into something that now they can potentially go to their parents and say, ‘I’d like to study this.’ In addition, I think the aspect of designers being seen as futurists, being able to help shape and mold what the future can be is also an exciting thing that I think IDA is doing as an organization. And I can’t wait to see where that goes because if we start thinking about designers as strategists for future thinking or how the future is lived, I think that is an exciting proposition.”
Belizaire is positive about the future. She said she always tries to look at things as opportunities versus challenges. Even the changes brought about by COVID are opportunities to improve the design of the workplace.
“I’ve seen how technology has just changed the way that we move about space. And rather than seeing it as daunting, I see it as an opportunity. It brought back the humanity in all of us. I think some lessons have been lost along the way in the back to office push, although I do believe back being in an office environment has tremendous benefit in helping young professionals or emerging professionals grow. We also need to pay attention to the fact that our employees’ wellness and autonomy needs to be flexible in certain regards. That’s what I hope we don’t lose.”