Member Profile: Haily Zaki

We have a new member to our community: Haily Zaki, co-founder of LA Design Festival and founder of Secret Agent.  

Can you share your background story with us - how and why did you found LA Design Festival and Secret Agent, what motivates you, and what is your ambition with it?

The LA Design Festival was founded to celebrate and honor LA's design culture.  It began as a passion project; a social experiment of sorts.  It seemed unthinkable that Los Angeles did not have a formal design festival at the time. We were community-driven from the beginning.  The LA Design Festival is essentially an open platform where anyone with a point of view on design can express themselves.  We are purposefully design discipline-diverse, and take an inclusive approach to curating a program that reflects the creative talent and diversity of our city.  Each year, it's incredible to see what all the organizers and participants have been working on and how the community expresses itself.

Who inspires you the most in terms of social change or creative expression/innovation?

Honestly, we're so lucky that through our work, both with Secret Agent and the LA Design Festival, we're surrounded by incredible creatives.  I am inspired by anyone who wields their influence and their expertise to affect positive change.

If you could create a society from scratch, what would this look like?

A society based on acceptance and inclusivity would be nice.