B+H's Newly Minted CEO Says His First Job Offer Falling Through Turned Out To Be a Lucky Break

A job offer that fell through changed the life trajectory of Patrick Fejér, the recently appointed chief executive of global design firm B+H.

As a student at Cornell University in upstate New York, he had been offered a summer internship at a prominent Canadian architecture firm.

"Within days of packing up and going from Ithaca, [New York], to Toronto, they called me up and said, 'Hey, we can't hire you,' and things just fell through," said Fejér, who was promoted to CEO of Toronto-based B+H in September. Previously, he served as senior design principal of the architecture firm with 12 offices across the globe.

"I had to figure out a backup plan because it was my fourth year [of getting his architecture degree], and you need to have some kind of professional experience before you graduate."

Fejér reached out to an old teaching assistant based in Seattle who was working for global architecture firm NBBJ.

"I scrambled and put together a portfolio in half a day. It had taken me weeks to put together one for the Canadian firm. This was before having a digital portfolio," he recalled.

After looking at his work, the firm decided he would fit on a competition team of about a dozen architects NBBJ was setting up in Los Angeles. His group went on to win some of the firm's largest public projects, including the Cincinnati Bengals stadium and Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Those projects at that time were ahead of the curve in understanding the synergies between visitors attending the game and partaking in food and beverage options, Fejér said: "It was all about getting people to arrive an hour earlier and stay an hour later."

His biggest problem was the principals at NBBJ didn't want him to go back to Cornell and wanted him full-time. But Fejér was not going to give up his degree and ended up graduating in 1997.

Decades later, Fejér says the experience of that first job taught him about tenacity.

"You never want to give up, " said the chief executive who has worked at B+H since 2005. "In many of those early pitches, we also thought the jury might not go our way, but we kept following up and showing up with our ideas. Never giving up. Show how impactful a project can be."

He is now head of a nearly 70-year-old company with more than 450 employees that has Canadian studios in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and U.S. studios in Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego. B+H's other offices are in Dubai; Shanghai and Shenzhen in China; Hong Kong; Singapore; and Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City. One thing Fejér always tells members of his team is that a project is never done even once a proposal is in.

"The idea is never giving up and always being bold with your ideas," said Fejér. "As I look ahead to my role as CEO, it is all about mapping out a new path for B+H."

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