Andy Cohen

Cohen has had as much to do with office design to get workers back to the office as he has had with office-to-residential conversions in Downtown Los Angeles. 

He has a first-row seat to DTLA’s challenges, as the architecture firm has an office there. The company claims its L.A. office is the first vertical urban creative campus in the downtown area. Cohen — a registered architect in 41 states and three Canadian provinces — has spent his entire 43-year career at Gensler, the architectural powerhouse he joined as a designer focused on sustainability. 

When Cohen joined the Los Angeles office, the firm had 390 employees. Since 2005, he and global co-chair Diane Hoskins have overseen the long-term strategy and day-to-day operations of the global practice which has grown to 6,000 people across 56 offices. 

Gensler is the biggest U.S. architecture firm with $1.86 billion in revenue per Architectural Record 2025 rankings. Cohen has opened up new practice areas for Gensler, including global aviation and transportation. He established Gensler’s entertainment center practice and later expanded it beyond movie studio design to include urban entertainment centers, theme parks, and mixed-use developments. 

— Lauren Elkies Schram