our team
Lakeside Collaborative has been providing consulting services for the last 15 years to high-profile specialty retailers, non-profit museums, and cultural institutions. We work with our clients to clarify their creative direction, capture new audiences, and increase their revenue streams.
Franci Sagar, Founder + Director
Franci has built a reputation in the retail industry for innovative thinking, professionalism, inspirational management, clarity of vision, and an exceptional aesthetic.
Franci was co-founder of ZONA, a specialty retailer, whose first store was established in the downtown SoHo area of New York City. ZONA grew to become a world-class lifestyle brand with multiple locations, including Aspen, East Hampton, New York, Florence and Tokyo.
Since 2000, and the establishment of the Lakeside Collaborative, as part of the consulting services offered by her group, Franci and her team have been retained to increase revenue streams and promote the culture, values and mission of museums, cultural and educational institutions through their retail initiatives.
In addition Franci has expertise creating mission-related product selection, proprietary product development, print and Website initiatives, and the development of customer service programs reflective of the museum’s brand. Together with other members of the Lakeside Collaborative team, Franci has been enabling museum retail operations to market their museum’s brands to expanded audiences beyond the museum visitor.
Today, she resides as Vice President and Director of Retail and Brand Development at the Museum of Arts and Design.
Sophie Claire Sagar, Project Lead + Partner
Sophie Sagar joined Lakeside Collaborative in 2011 as Project Coordinator for the retail rebrand of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (ISGM) in Boston. Since then, she has become an integral part of the Lakeside team, shepherding projects from ideation to actualization. Sophie has worked with Herzog de Meuron architects on the design of the retail store of the Perez Art Museum of Miami, and has been instrumental in creating the visual merchandising language for the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art. She has worked with Pentagram Design on the successful retail re-branding of the ISGM and the Barnes Foundation, spearheading multiple branded merchandise initiatives.
Today she orchestrates the progress of varying scale projects, interfacing with multi-disciplinary teams to oversee workflow, project status, deliverables and ensure client satisfaction. Sophie maintains on-going relationships with the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Rubin Museum as a lead in their product selection process, and does on-site visual merchandising for the Rubin.
Sophie earned an AA Degree at Bard College and a BA from St. John’s College in Philosophy and Literature.
Owen Maher - Associate
Trained as an architectural designer, Owen has practiced in Detroit, Chicago and New York. He has pursued projects that leverage his skills as a visual communicator, project manager and critical thinker to successfully realize his clients’ aspirations. Owen earned his Master’s in Architecture from the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. He gained professional experience as a Project Director at Frampton Co, a Project Architect at PlattDana Architects, with LAMAS for the 2014 MoMA P.S. 1 Competition, and with Detroit based non-profit The Empowerment Plan.
While working at Frampton Co, Owen was tasked to develop a wide range of custom furnishings. This initiative ranged from translating the creative director’s sketches and ideas into tangible goods ready for sale to managing all aspect of design and production on items as small as desktop accessories to entire homes of custom millwork, case goods and furniture. Most recently, Owen worked with Lakeside Collaborative as lead Architect and Designer on the The Novogratz x Amazon Retail Pop-Up.
Kristen Bierly - Associate
With a degree in Integrative Arts, Kristen Bierly started her career knowing she had more than just one creative passion. Since 2006 Kristen has had success working with clients on residential and retail interior design projects as well as ventures in the graphic design genre.
For over a decade Kristen broadened her passions in the non-profit and museum industry, working closely with the Director of Retail at The Store at the Museum of Arts and Design as the Director of Special Projects and as an Assistant Buyer. During her tenure at the Museum of Arts and Design, Kristen’s skill set grew to include visual merchandising, product selection, organizing special events, and coordinating the Store’s latest success, a rotating fine jewelry exhibit titled RE:FINE.
In 2018, Kristen continued deepening her expertise in Retail Ventures when she joined the Lakeside Collaborative team to become the lead on visual merchandising, product sourcing and strategy consulting and ecommerce development for The Shed Performing Arts Space in Hudson Yards, New York and the National Women's History Museum in Washington, D.C.
