As a child, Lisa Matkovic, who was recently named the first CEO of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, was always painting and drawing. But her penchant for the arts would one day be a source of career-choice regret that might seem surprising for someone running a big architecture firm.

In high school, Matkovic's devotion and talent led her art teacher to encourage her to apply to art school. For years after college, her artistic passion led the New York native to frequent a studio in downtown Manhattan, where she would crouch inside a “horrible, cluttered basement” with a low ceiling beside other artists doing real-life drawing of a model.

While she never became a professional artist, Matkovic ended up in the design-heavy field of architecture. In August, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, known as RAMSA, appointed her to fill its newly created CEO position.

While the passion for design emerged early in life, so did Matkovic's pragmatic career sensibilities. When it came to picking a major in college, she bypassed art. Coming from a first-generation immigrant family from Croatia, Matkovic said she often was reminded of psychologist Abraham Maslow's famous hierachy of needs, which suggests humans need basics such as food and water first on the path to reaching their full potential.

So, she picked a focus that seemed better suited for a career with a steady income. She went to New York University to earn a degree in social science with a concentration in organizational behavior — a subject that still comes handy for her when running a business.

“My own concern about being able to support myself took precedence over what was a dream,” Matkovic said in an interview. “As a 15- to 16-year-old, if I can make money, I would have done that as a painter. I just love art. I love art history.”

Fast forward, and after working in human resources for about 15 years after college for firms including consultancy Booz Allen while dabbling in art on the side, Matkovic got a call from a headhunting company about a job at the architecture firm she now leads to run its HR department. That call eventually would lead to what Matkovic, 54, described as coming to “kind of a full circle moment.”

That's because “it’s all about problem-solving. [But] my true love in life is art and architecture. ... I kind of felt at home [at RAMSA] ... just being among a group of people who have an interest in art and design. Our work is just so beautiful and inspiring. That’s what I love.”

The firm is known for designing several high-profile projects, including the 15 Central Park West residential development in Manhattan; Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Comcast Center in Philadelphia; and Nashville Public Library in Tennessee.

Just two years into her HR job at the New York-based architecture firm, Matkovic was promoted to the chief operating officer position and served in that role for another 10 years. As COO, she developed and executed the firm's strategic business plans. Now the organizational behavior veteran is in charge as CEO.

“What’s unusual about me in this position is you typically don’t find a non-architect at the head of the company,” she said. “The creation of the CEO role signified ... being very focused on the business of architecture."

Matkovic said she sees herself as a facilitator. "I’m kind of the person quietly sitting in the back making the whole machinery run. ... We wanted to have someone who’s in charge of helping the partners focus on the strategy," she said. "I have no input on design. What I have is a deep appreciation for art and design."

The firm wants to "stay the course" and leverage its "very strong culture" as it moves forward, Matkovic said. It's important in a changing world to be "really flexible and adaptive," she added.

As for her lifelong passion for creating art, Matkovic said she had to put a stop to more seriously pursuing painting in oils as she raised her daughter, who's now 21. Instead of traveling to art studios, Matkovic in recent years has set up her easel in a house she owns in Killingworth, Connecticut. While she lives in Nutley, New Jersey, she likes to go to her studio to paint in oils on weekends and shop for antiques.

At work, the former human resources executive said she likes developing employees. Almost 40% of the firm’s staff of about 300 have joined in the past two to three years, including many fresh out of college.

The firm has newer employees "who are wonderful complements to the partners and senior associates and others who’ve been with us for decades,” she said. “We just want to make sure we are prepared for the future.”