Talent Spotlight: Marina Charters
International Women's Day 2026
This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating the women of CHIL Interior Design, B+H’s dedicated hospitality interior design studio, throughout the entire month of March, spotlighting the voices shaping our culture, collaboration, and design leadership.
We sat down with Marina Charters, Senior Interior Designer at CHIL, to reflect on this year’s IWD theme, Give to Gain, creativity, and the power of teamwork.
The theme for IWD 2026 is ‘Give to Gain.’ If you could go back in time and ‘give’ one piece of advice to your younger self on her first day in the industry, what would it be, and what do you think she would ‘gain’ from knowing it sooner?
When I first started at CHIL, or known then as Coordinated Hotel Interior Limited, I was 24 years old. I was shy and intimidated by pretty much everyone. Honestly, I felt like such a child pretending to be an adult, and in many ways, I was. The advice I would give my younger self is that all people, young and old, are just people, with their own faults, insecurities, families, life outside work, personalities…
There is no need to be intimidated by people who exceed you in age when you are first starting out. You can always find middle ground or find a talking point to break the ice, usually one that isn’t work-related. I find that when you get to know people, they don’t seem as intimidating, and that helps you build work relationships and, in turn, your confidence. When you first start, you are learning, and it is okay to not know the answer in the moment. It is okay to say you ‘don’t know’ and that you will circle back with the team to find the answer.
What’s your favourite part of working at CHIL?
Whenever the deadlines are stacking up, and you start to worry, someone always says, “Don’t worry, in the end, it always gets done,” and it does. Every time.
At CHIL, I have always felt my team has my back, and that is one of the main reasons I have been here for as long as I have. I am not alone. We have a team that cares for one another, and we step in when someone is in need.
We all hit creative blocks. When you’re stuck on a concept, how do you “reset” to get the inspiration flowing again?
Yes, creative blocks do happen. When I am working on a design concept, I usually let it percolate in the background for a couple days, but honestly, sometimes you can’t wait for ‘inspiration to hit’; sometimes it does, and that is lovely, but other times you just have to keep on working at it, digging deeper until you find that gem of a concept.
When I am working on a concept, I rotate between looking at inspiring images on the web, sketches, and a Word document. The word doc most of the time just has phrases or words that mean something to what I am seeing and sketching, and eventually those words and images start to come together, and you start spinning and focusing on something.
I also find that when you are stuck, walking it through with a team member and bouncing ideas off them almost always works. They can give you a different perspective, or maybe they can simply point out that one word that just pulls it all together. Don’t work in a silo when you can benefit from your team, and come on, concept is one of the best phases of a project. I am sure you would be doing your teammate a favour by chatting about the concept for 30 min, and pulling them away from their CA work.