Hallie Crouch
39, Partner, Strategy Director
Bialosky
Cleveland

The first woman, first millennial and first nontraditional practitioner to hold ownership in Cleveland-based design firm Bialosky, Crouch joined it during The Great Recession when many companies were doing layoffs.

After she graduated with a Master’s Degree in Architecture from Kent State University, the quest for employment led Crouch to expand her vision of what her career would be. She took a different path from architecture that eventually led her to find her true calling as a strategist and marketer.

Crouch’s first job was for a boutique interior design store in Washington D.C., a job that helped her grow in business skills and confidence. She says the owner hired her and then had to leave for a time. “You can imagine,” she says. “It’s a 20-something’s first job and I am handed the keys to a business and the owner says ‘You can reach me by phone.'” 

During her time at the store, Crouch dealt with national arts accounts and artists, ran the store, did interior design consultations, represented the business on TV and handled freight and delivery. “It was such a wonderful experience because I discovered I loved … being on the front lines of business,” she says. 

Returning to Cleveland where she grew up, Crouch took an architecture job with Bialosky but was struggling in it until the practice offered her a different path. “It was a turn from being the lowest performing employee to understanding what I cared about and what the firm needed—which was business strategy, being on the front lines and winning work.”

For the last ten years, Crouch has focused on business development and marketing strategy. She became a partner in 2024.

A challenge for her firm and for her has been competing for work with larger firms.. “As a strategist we’ve been talking internally about what that means,” she says.

Bialosky promotes its market strengths, which includes public libraries. “We love being a leader in public libraries—both new build and renovation,” she says. “Libraries everywhere are really looking at investing” in community-centered spaces.

Bialosky also does a lot of higher education work and mixed-use developments. “At least in the Midwest, we see these traditional shopping mall sites and developers considering how to redevelop them,” she says.

One of her roles is to coach team members on how to win work through successful strategy presentations to clients. Crouch helps her team “think about what makes us different,” she says. “What are the pain points of the client and just kind of pulling that thread and getting our team to show the human side in interviews.”

Crouch also organized an offsite women and nonbinary retreat for the firm that was a thoughtful balance of inquiry, data-sharing and visioning. A men’s retreat also was held. Actionable suggestions and honest feedback were relayed to senior leadership. Notable results included an improved paternity leave policy, wider pay equity reviews, demystification of how projects are staffed and pursued and holding firmwide town halls to promote transparency.

Crouch often presents at design schools and architecture conferences on the topics of equity and alternative careers, and is a former executive officer and secretary of the Cleveland chapter of the American Institute of Architects. She currently is a member of AIA’s National Strategic Council. 

She also serves on the board of Big-Hearted Blooms, a nonprofit that recycles once-used flowers from events and unsold flowers from grocers to create new bouquets for patients, veterans, the elderly and the lonely—In 2023, serving 129 care facilities and making over 12,000 personal hand-deliveries to uplift spirits.