Joanna Gillespie, Founder & Principal
Joanna grew up in Buffalo and San Francisco, surrounded by entrepreneurs, craftspeople, home renovators, and artists. That upbringing shaped both how she works and what she notices.
Her career started in artist management at Righteous Babe Records, coordinating tours, media, and production logistics for three years. She then earned a B.A. in Art History at the University at Buffalo, graduating summa cum laude as Dean's Medalist, and completed graduate coursework in Art History and Museum Studies with a focus on architectural and design history.
From 2005 to 2020 she worked as a private art advisor and collection manager, handling acquisitions, consignments, shipping, installation, and conservation for twelve collections totaling over $50 million in fine art across five locations. That work brought her repeatedly into residential design and construction, and in 2015 she founded Fox Den Projects for high-end residential project management and interior design.
From 2020 to 2024, Joanna also served as Studio Manager and Procurement Lead at West End Interiors, a luxury design-build firm in Buffalo, where she ran studio operations and full-cycle procurement across roughly 25 concurrent projects and wrote the firm's FF&E specifications.
Today Fox Den Projects is her full-time practice, where she manages residential interiors and construction projects from preconstruction through handover and serves as interior designer for private clients. Art collection management is available on request.
