Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/22/2015
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Categories
The Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship presents
Business Decisions and Relationships in a Social Enterprise
Speakers: Emma Gardner ’89 & Patrick McDarrah ’88
Tuesday, September 22 | 12:00pm – 1:00 pm | Allbritton 311
Co-sponsored by the Wesleyan Alumni Network
Lunch will be served.
RSVP and invite friends via Facebook.
With a core product of made-to-order area rugs, woven in Nepal, emma gardner design ensures each rug is Goodweave.org certified and no child labor is used. Emma, as the Chief Designer and Principal, and Patrick, as the President, make the conscious effort to ensure that their organization produces high quality products in a positive way.
Learn about emma gardner design, how the business was started and the impacts that business decisions (production, distributions, marketing) and relationships have on social enterprise. To learn more, visit: www.emmagardnerdesign.com
Emma Gardner
Award-winning designer Emma C. Gardner, chief designer and principal at emma gardner design, has been creating striking and vibrant rugs for consumers, interior designers and architects since 2002. After a successful career as an editor and illustrator, Gardner now applies her celebrated sense of color and composition to original rugs that are available through 47 showrooms throughout North America. Via licensed programs, multiple categories of retail home accessories and fabric will be available in 2015. Her contemporary collections are infused with her uniquely American and worldly point of view.
Born in Kyoto, Japan to an English father and Russian-American mother, she grew up in New York City and now lives in Northern California. Asian themes, modern art and natural forms are all evident inspiration in the quality products under her emma gardner design and emma at home brands.
Editors often articulate home and style trends by showing her work, which has appeared in leading design and fashion magazines
including Elle Décor, House Beautiful, Interior Design, Better Homes & Gardens, Traditional Home, Elle, Glamour, Dwell, Luxe, Magazine and COVER. Gardner has received Interior Design magazine’s Best of Year, an America’s Magnificent Carpet Award, IIDEX/Neocon Innovation and Neocon Gold Awards for her rug and fabric designs. Her work adorns some of the best hotels and finest homes in the world in addition to premier health care facilities including the Mayo Clinic.
Prior to her career as a designer, Emma Gardner was the Editor-in-Chief for Condé Nast’s online Health and Fitness magazine.
Before that she served as Managing Editor of Better Health and Producer of the Food Channel/iVillage (NBC Universal). In 1996,
she founded, designed and edited her own “e-zine” for young women, Smarty-Pants.
Her early education was at public schools, including New York’s Stuyvesant High School. She earned a B.A. from Wesleyan
University and did graduate work at Columbia University in English Literature. Additionally, she studied textile design at F.I.T. and
painting and drawing at Cooper Union in New York. Currently, when not creating for the home, Emma is in the studio preparing mixed media works of fine art for an exhibition slated for 2016.
Emma lives and works in Petaluma, CA with her husband, Patrick, who is president of the company, and their daughter and son.
Involved in her community, she has been an Art Docent for the Petaluma City Schools since 2011, leading regular art workshops
for elementary students.
Patrick J. McDarrah
Patrick McDarrah is a multi-discipline executive engaged in three businesses. He is President of emma gardner design, General
Manager, Programming & Digital for American ED TV and the Editor-in-Chief of the American ED Report as well as a manager of
the Estate of Fred W. McDarrah and it’s vast photo archive.
At American ED TV he oversees all aspects of the start up networks’ presence online including all social, web and mobile applications. Additionally he is in charge of a daily video newscast featuring CBS personality Jack Ford focused on breaking news in American education.
emma gardner design is a 14 year old collaboration with his wife and business partner, Emma C. Gardner, whose core product is
hand-made rugs. As President he overseas all sales and marketing operations. He also orchestrated the start-up and rollout of emma at home, a trademarked soft-modern home furnishings brand specializing in accessories such as rugs, blankets, pillows, lighting and top of bed. The company is regularly featured in high profile residential, commercial and hospitality projects and leading publications’ globally that cover design.
As manager of his father’s estate along with his brother and mother, the Executrix, Patrick has developed multiple revenue streams via licensing, vintage and new print sales as well as exhibitions around the world including current shows at Centre Pompidou (France), MOMA (NYC), Museum of the City of NY and Museo Picasso (Spain).
His current portfolio follows a long and successful career as a media executive specializing in the production, distribution, sales
and marketing of filmed entertainment via traditional and new media. As a producer, McDarrah earned credits on 1998 Cannes Film Festival Official Selection Goodbye, Lover for Warner Bros. and 1997 Toronto Film Festival Official Selection The Blood Oranges for Trimark Pictures. He played a key role in the financing and international distribution of films such as Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for Columbia Pictures/Good Machine International and box office winner, Bride of Chucky for Universal Pictures/Good Machine International. McDarrah began his film career as an executive at Miramax Films in New York where he was part of the acquisitions and co-production team that yielded legendary independent films such as Quentin Tarrantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Academy Award winner, Pulp Fiction, Neil Jordan’s Academy Award winner, The Crying Game and Jane Campion’s Academy Award winner, The Piano. His early education was at public schools, including New York’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School. He earned a B.A. from Wesleyan University.
McDarrah has spoken and/or taught at the following institutions and events: The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Business School, The New School, Consumer Electronics Show, Independent Film Market, The Reel School, The Learning Annex, eContent World and New York University.
Patrick McDarrah was born and raised in New York City, New York. He currently lives and works in Petaluma, CA with his wife, Emma Gardner and their children Thea and Bruno.