Lifelong Matchmaker: Marketing Expert Randi MacColl on Design in Context, Female Founders, and Following Your Interests
By Julia Gamolina
Randi MacColl’s professional experience spans over twenty-five years across brand development, marketing, and high-profile partnerships in design, architecture, and lifestyle. She’s built and led innovative marketing and research teams, driving revenue at media powerhouses (Gourmet, Architectural Digest); shaped brand identity at fast-growing startups (1stdibs, Sweeten); and launched original brand experiences (e.g., the industry-leading Architectural Digest Design Show and the "buzzy" AD Greenroom backstage at the Oscars).
She joined the country’s leading luxury staging, design and furniture studio, Vesta Home, as VP Marketing in Summer 2024. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, Randi talks about tested-and-true marketing strategies, working in the golden age of magazine publishing, and how design impacts daily life, advising those just starting their careers to attend events and make connections.
JG: Just in my time running Madame Architect, I feel like the tools for marketing and brand positioning have changed so much. Having an incredible career in it, I'm sure you've seen it all! What are you paying most attention to for the rest of 2025? What would you advise our readers to be looking at right now as well?
RMC: There’s a great Eliel Saarinen quote about design in context, “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan." That’s how I view marketing; short-term goals should nest within — and pave the way to — the longer-term brand aspirations. Achieving that one-two punch is easier said than done, but when you find tools that streamline the process while continuing to build trust, understand motivation, share expertise and spark emotion via first-rate storytelling, you’re on the right track.
We’re all looking at AI, of course. It can be a tremendous shortcut—SEO topics, trend analysis, prospecting, formats. You always should adapt it for tone, add examples and double-check facts(!), but it’s a huge time-saver, especially for small teams. Not a new idea, but email marketing is often underrated and can be powerful. You don’t need to turn into a blog machine; just report on what you’re doing with compelling visuals — before and afters are perennial favorites — and synchronize emails with social posts. Use an email subject line tester tool to find ones more likely to get high open rates!
Now let's go back a little bit — you studied journalism with a minor in business! What were you hoping to do in the world?
My dream job back then was to write headlines for The New York Post that were so irresistibly clever that people would buy the paper just to read the story [laughs]. Half of my classmates dropped the Reporting 101 class because you had to gather the details, write and submit the story within minutes in the classroom; if you misspelled a name, it counted as a fact error so your grade started at 50 out of 100 and went downward from there. It was intense and I loved it.
During my college summers, I interned at Vogue and Vanity Fair, fact-checking, cataloging products, running around NYC sourcing props for beauty shoots — witches’ hands for a story about aging, a taxidermy bird after the live one misbehaved on a famous photographer’s set. Going into publishing seemed like a foregone conclusion, in a good way. I got to tap into both the creative-on-speed and business outcome aspects of what I studied.
“...you can create your own culture within a bigger organization by hiring the right people.”
You then had a really significant tenure at Conde Nast and Architectural Digest. What was your focus, and what did you learn?
It was a golden time at Conde Nast and we all knew it. Some of my best friends and mentors are from that chapter in my life. The standards were high, the people were smart and there was a lot of creative leeway to develop your brand. Marketing’s focus was to help the sales team bring in revenue by promoting the brand’s best features and inventing custom, multi-platform opportunities advertisers would pay a premium for.
I learned you can create your own culture within a bigger organization by hiring the right people. I learned about P&Ls and budgeting and how to run a department like a mini-agency. I learned that the best ideas came from the product itself…the answer is literally right in front of you. I learned how the best marketers are stealth salespeople. I learned how to tell if a client was going to buy before they said so. I learned what it was like to take a brand leap—to launch and sell high-stakes experiences, like the AD Design Show. I’ll never forget showing up at the AD Show an hour before the doors opened and seeing the line wrapped around the block. The four-day event attracted 40,000 attendees, both within the design trade and consumers, and 400 exhibitors every year, reinforcing our standing as the design industry leader.
The AD Home Design Show and the crowd shot at the front desk is awaiting the Show to open on the design trade day. Courtesy Randi MacColl.
We met when you were at Sweeten! Tell me about this time for you.
Sweeten is a service that matches renovators with vetted general contractors, staying involved until the project is done. I was hired by co-founders Preeti Sriratana and Jean Brownhill; Preeti was also a co-founder and partner at the architecture firm Modellus Novus and Jean was a trained architect whose personal remodeling disaster led her to start the company. I’d had some experience at startups with 1stdibs, but this was a completely different vibe. Sharing an office with them gave me insight to the inner workings of the business — Preeti called it “the Sweeten MBA” — and I loved the roll-up-your-sleeves atmosphere.
The Madame Architect article captured Jean’s amazing story, which was the foundation of the business. With a modest budget, we built an award-winning content machine of homeowner stories and renovation 101 advice. We packaged the brand with the tagline “Renovate Fearlessly” — which applied to both the homeowners and the GCs — layering in strategic advertising and partnerships to grow to nearly $1.5 billion construction projects in the pipeline. Sweeten began attracting national press like Inc.’s Hottest New Companies, Vanity Fair and theTODAY Show even though we were a NY-area business. We devised a plan for expansion to top renovating markets, rolling out to Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. It was a fantastic time in my career and taught me how to translate category expertise into revenue.
How did your role at Vesta come about? What are your priorities for it as we look to the rest of 2025?
I got a message from a contact on LinkedIn that the CEO of Vesta Home was looking for a senior marketing person, so we met when he came to town. The job paralleled my experience—a decade-plus at AD, launching the real estate vertical at 1stdibs, the design-tech combo of Sweeten. I’m a big believer in the circular economy and the staging plus premium furniture rental aspect of our business fulfills that. Priorities this year are to underscore our authority as the leaders in luxury staging, including that homes can be bought fully furnished; and to expand our design and custom furniture services in residential, commercial and hospitality projects. We produce our furniture globally, so there’s no retail middleman.
“When there’s a setback, I tend to take action, always believing there’s something I can do in that very moment to improve the situation. The last thing I want to feel is stuck.”
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you both manage through perceived disappointments or setbacks?
I’m an Aries—we pretty much see the opportunities and not the obstacles! The biggest challenge is people not understanding that marketing isn’t just about spending; it’s about making more money in different ways across an organization. When there’s a setback, I tend to take action, always believing there’s something I can do in that very moment to improve the situation. The last thing I want to feel is stuck. I’m one of those annoying fatalistic “things happen for a reason” people. It’s worked for me.
Who are you admiring now and why?
I’d like to shout-out female founders. About five years ago, while working at Hearst, I volunteered as the lead marketing scout for HearstLab, which invests in startups spearheaded by women. It’s maddening how disproportionate it is when it comes to females raising capital. I’d seen the struggles firsthand at Sweeten as well.
Before joining Vesta, I helped launch TALD, a platform that connects clients with design professionals and facilitates virtual consultations, so homeowners can get a taste of how to work with a designer or architect. The founder, Emily Shapiro, is super-smart and is showcasing fresh talents from the far corners of the country on the site.
Central Park Tower, NYC; staging design by Sara McCarthy for Vesta Home. Photography by Colin Miller.
A Stradella Road project, Los Angeles; staging design by Kiel Wuellner for Vesta Home. Photography by Mike Kelley.
What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission? And, what does success in that look like to you?
My first thought goes to being a good mom and wife. My kids are in their twenties and navigating this crazy world seems way more complicated than when I was that age. If I contribute to their health and happiness, that’s a success in my book. I’m also a lifelong matchmaker—not only connecting people romantically, though I’ve done that, but also for personal and work-related things for friends and colleagues.
Not sure it’s a “core mission,” but I do believe in the power of design and how surroundings can influence daily happiness. I felt this acutely in the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires; L.A. is Vesta’s hometown and we were fortunate to be able to reserve $500,000 in new furniture immediately for those in need, joining forces with L.A. Can Do, a non-profit started by a designer who lost his own home in the Palisades. The emails we received from families who’d escaped with virtually nothing were absolutely heart-breaking—a mixture of shock, resilience and gratitude. The furnishings represented a step toward normalcy and security amid chaos.
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?
It’s OK to not know exactly what you want; be open to the possibilities. If “follow your passion” feels like too much pressure, just follow your interests. If your school has a strong alumni network, take advantage of that. LinkedIn is one of your best tools; connect with your friends, teachers, your parents’ friends, anyone you meet along the way, and look for reasons to post or “like” items of note in the industry you want to enter.
Identify companies you’d like to work for, follow them and see who is connected there. When you apply somewhere you’re excited about, check your network to see if anyone you know has a connection. Ask if they feel comfortable making an intro; some won’t pan out anyway, as they may not be a close enough contact.
Attend events in your field, even if you go solo. At Madame Architect’s seven-year party, a young woman in her mid-twenties came over and asked if she could join our group because she didn’t know anyone. We had a great conversation, and are now connected on LinkedIn! Volunteer for things that intrigue you, whether they are career-oriented or personally meaningful; my HearstLab experience was one of my favorite parts of my job.
The one piece of advice I’ll add for women, courtesy of Jean Brownhill, founder and CEO of Sweeten, is when you get further up the ranks, don’t compete with other females to get the one seat at the table—make room for a second or third seat!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.