On the Importance of Mentorship

Meet our New Board Member, Janet Woods

Janet Woods of Savills has joined CAW’s Board of Directors

We are proud to announce that Janet Woods of Savills has join the board of Creative Art Works. As Vice Chairman and Northeast Region Lead, Janet Woods provides management of the firm’s tenant representation services in Boston, Connecticut, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Miami. She also serves on the company’s Board of Directors and the North American Management Board. You can read her full bio on the board page of our website.

We sat down with Janet to talk about her introduction to CAW through a summer Public Art Youth Employment program, the importance of mentorship, and the intersection between athletics and creative youth development.  

 CAW: When we try to explain the purpose of creative youth development, we often make a connection to youth development through athletics. Could you elaborate on how your participation in sports helped your personal and professional development?

Janet Woods: I was an only child and I came from a single-parent family, and I had a wonderful role model in my mother who commuted into the city every day and worked. From very early on, I found myself joining sports teams. I was on a little league team and I was the only girl in the whole system. (Now, you see girls on sports teams all the time but, back then, that was just unheard of.) I was very fortunate to have strong leaders to guide me and help develop the confidence to get up to bat, to succeed on the field and to lose graciously, and help me learn how to be a great team player. I had unbelievable coaches that supported me and developed me further to become a captain. I took that to college and was able to maintain playing on two Division One sports teams with being captain of both. All of that absolutely prepared me for becoming a manager. Sports formed the foundation for me to be in an industry where I'm one of very few women and I'm managing 300 people, plus or minus, and they are mostly men.

CAW: How did you first become involved with Creative Art Works?

Janet Woods: Savills has been a supporter of Creative Art Works for a long time, but it was Matt Barlow who brought me into the fold. He was really the visionary when we were renovating our new office space and he invited me to be part of a team. Our brand-new space was beautifully designed. It is very thoughtful about color and there is a lot of light. Savills had about $3 million worth of artwork throughout our old space which had been picked out by our former CEO. A lot of it was very interesting, but a lot of it was very dark and it didn’t fit in our new space. So, we decided to reexamine what we had and decided to sell off the majority of it and figure out who we really wanted to be kind of this next phase of Savills life. And that’s when we had this idea to ask CAW to bring in a group of young people to help us make a colorful and a relevant statement about who we are at Savills and what we want to be going forward.

CAW: And how was your experience working with our Youth Apprentices?

Janet Woods: We feel very fortunate that we had the opportunity to work with them. I loved the client presentation. (In fact, I’d say they did a better job with their presentation than some of the brokers that I've had in my office.) Each Youth Apprentice had their individual piece of the presentation. They did a great job in assessing what we were saying. They really listened – I just loved to see that at such a young age – and I could see that having to deal with a client situation had a positive impact on them. They had to connect with their clients on a certain level and think on their feet, all while having the pressure of being in front of a pretty impressive audience, because our CEO was there as well. Everything was so well done from start to finish. 

CAW: Are you happy with the work?

Janet Woods: We are thrilled to have it. Our vision started in one place and ended in another, but we love where we ended up. The colors and the art itself is phenomenal. And it’s in the most prominent hallway in our space. Visitors come in and walk straight over to it and comment on how beautiful it is. And it's almost unbelievable that kids put this together and executed it at such a high level.

Janet Woods speaks with Youth Apprentice Jessica Plepi at the client pitch for the Savills murals.

CAW: After the Savills mural pitch, you spoke at length with Jessica Plepi, one of our Youth Apprentices. Do you remember your conversation with her?

Janet Woods: She was exploring what she wanted to do with her life. What can a high school or college student do with an art background? Sometimes, you get tunnel vision, but art touches so many professions and the world in so many different ways. I myself had no idea about my profession coming out of college. No idea. I had a neighbor who introduced me to Savills, and I was fortunate enough to fall into it. So, I wanted to tell her that her expertise could be applicable and interesting to a company like Savills. There’s a lot of opportunities out there that you don't know about, and you never know what you're going to love, so you should try things. It's okay if it doesn't work, because you always learn something from it.

CAW: That's very much in keeping with the ethos of Creative Art Works. We believe making art is an important element in anybody's development. Most of our students and Youth Apprentices are not going to become professional artists, just like most youth who participate in sports don’t go on to become professional athletes, but the experience gives you transferrable experience and skills.

That being said, we understand that your daughter is an art major.

Janet Woods: She's a fine arts major and an animation minor. Of course, she's my daughter so I’m biased, but she's an incredibly talented young lady. She got awarded a fairly prestigious grant at school and her exhibit will be on display starting at the end of March. I have three children, only one that's artistic. I have another one graduating from high school this year and then I've got a younger one, my son, who's in middle school right now.

CAW: We see you have some art in the room behind you.

Janet Woods: That’s by my daughter. I think she did that at 13. If I were to give you a tour of my house, you would see every wall is filled with artwork from her.

CAW: So, your favorite artist is…?

Janet Woods: My daughter. No doubt about it. She’s very different than me. And seeing her transform into this amazing person who is just not a typical teenager and college student, and to see her love of the arts and her artistic success grow, and to be the support behind that has just opened my eyes to how wonderful art is for kids. Just to be able to be in the mix and producing any kind of art and to see how it can affect them as a person has been very powerful for me.