Brent Felten, retail sector client relationship director, recently sat down with Ryan Haug to discuss his journey from mechanical designer to leading the luxury retail practice at Henderson Engineers. The duo also dived into the current state of luxury retail industry with Ryan sharing his insights on sustainability, evolving consumer needs, and the importance of a collaborative team approach. Discover how Ryan’s journey and vision are shaping the future of luxury retail and changing the shopping experience below:

Ryan, tell me a little about your background and what led you to the role of luxury retail practice director at Henderson.

I joined Henderson and our luxury retail team early in my career as a mechanical designer. At that time, I was living in Kansas City and quickly realized I’d found something I was passionate about. Our team was dynamic, vested in the success of our clients, and focused on delivering innovative solutions to often complex design challenges. I went into sponge mode and learned something new every day. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I also really enjoyed the travel to destination locations.

After spending several years focused on lux projects, I was presented an opportunity to move to Los Angeles to help start up a new office and grow our Henderson brand and network in Southern California. During my time in LA, I’ve worn a number of hats leading our local office on predominantly commercial development projects in SoCal but was still often connected to luxury projects as well. So, rejoining our retail sector in 2023, and eventually stepping into the luxury retail practice director role in 2024 has felt like coming home after taking a career journey to LA that helped shape me as a leader and engineer.

As you’ve stepped into this role how do you view the overall state of the luxury retail industry as it currently sits?

Luxury brands are always striving to create environments that connect with the consumer. So as consumers evolve, brands continue adapting to right-size boutiques and evolve programming to have a renewed focus on customer experience, which often comes in the form of a hospitality offering. Consumer and operational data are critical parts of this process, so as a trusted advisor we’re continuing to seek ways to leverage our experience and longstanding history in the luxury retail market to help our clients make data informed decisions. The building systems we integrate into these world-class spaces are at the forefront of creating a comfortable and inviting environment that creates a unique customer experience.

The bar for sustainable design practice is being raised, and brands are no longer just looking for the best solutions, but are now asking how will it impact their carbon footprint and performing life-cycle cost analysis to make better informed material selections and design decisions. The conversation starts with sustainability.

Many brands are experiencing a slowdown in growth, which is placing an emphasis on creating impactful consumer experiences. In fact, according to Bain and Company’s Spring 2024 “Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study,” there was a one-to-three percent decline in personal luxury goods purchased, which is causing brands to rethink how they can build their value and prioritize trust and connection with consumers. Luxury brands are known for their classic creativity, not necessarily their innovation, but that’s where Team Henderson comes in. We can help reimagine the luxury shopping experience by prioritizing sustainability while enhancing how consumers experience the brand.

What are you hearing from our clients related to the challenge they’re facing?

Lease negotiations are becoming more and more critical on projects with many brands considering a hospitality component and expanding footprints. The typical shell retail space provisions in many situations aren’t sufficient to support the evolving program and emphasis on hospitality so identifying opportunities for risk mitigation early on is crucial. Overall costs are rising and placing an emphasis on value driven, data informed decisions. At Henderson, we’re fortunate to have years of experience and data to lean on, which coupled with challenging our team to be innovative, are key to maximizing value.

Where do you see Henderson providing the best value for our luxury clients?

Our solution-oriented approach to solving complex problems. We try to avoid using the terms “challenge, problem, issue” and re-frame them as opportunities to learn something new and to collaborate. We want to support our clients through every step of a project and have developed and aligned our services accordingly based on our decades of experience executing luxury projects. Offerings like lease reviews, due diligence visits, early design coordination, and commissioning and controls integration services through our sister company Henderson Building Solutions enable us to be a trusted partner through the life of a project.

Tell me a little about how your team is structured.

This is where I was hoping we started as I’d much rather talk about our team than myself :). Our primary goal is to always ensure the appropriate level of expertise and experience is aligned with each of our projects. This often means leaning into the diverse experience and unique strengths of our team members. Demonstrating fluidity and flexibility as a team as we face unique opportunities is key.

I’m a big sports fan, and any good sports team has key leaders that help foster a winning culture and are always striving to get better. Similarly in our luxury retail practice, we’re fortunate to have strong leaders that care deeply about doing good work and supporting each other. Our project management team is at the center of projects, and often the visible leader to our clients; however, show me a quarterback without an offensive line and I’ll show you a hurt QB. Our discipline leads (or offensive line if you will) are instrumental to delivering sound engineering solutions and supporting the growth and development of our team. They are foundational to our team.