Working on Tiffany & Co.'s largest European location just three months into my tenure was both daunting and formative. Milan would become the blueprint, not just for what we'd deliver, but for how we'd work at this scale. This was the project that set everything in motion. Challenge: Ensuring all of our custom touchpoints would integrate within the fixtures the way we'd hoped digitally, while navigating relationships with external partners I hadn't had experience working with and many times challenging their expertise for the best result possible. My role was validating drawings, checking our external partners' work, and aligning with our internal teams. With almost every element being new or specialized for this location, tolerances were incredibly tight. An additional lapping on the fabric was enough to cause something not to fit the way we intended. Approach: I had never traveled for work until this trip. Doing due diligence as early as possible, checking drawings, coordinating closely with designers to align creative concepts with implementation realities, and having difficult conversations when outcomes weren't clear became the foundations of how I'd work. Planning installation schedules and arrival schedules to understand where our work fell within the grand scheme of moving parts on site was critical. Even with all the checks, little details still found their way into the actual productions. Managing countless adjustments on-site meant treating every partner as an equal contributor, making in-situ decisions when digital plans met physical reality, and keeping everything on schedule despite the inevitable surprises. It was incredibly tense until the last days before opening. Outcome: Milan became the blueprint. It really set the tone for expectations from an in-store perspective, but also how hectic and serendipitous an opening on this scale can be. We learned how close we can fly to the sun without getting burnt. Managing these installations taught me not just the technical language of execution, but what I can handle with stress, coordination, and the interdisciplinary nature of the work. It truly takes a village. In the end, Montenapoleone established the systems and instincts that made Tokyo possible. The dust hadn't even settled before Ginza was already on the horizon. "Milan welcomes an exceptional new Tiffany & Co. store with the inauguration of the jeweler’s new flagship on the storied Via Monte Napoleone in Palazzo Taverna, a Neoclassical jewel built in 1835." - LVMH