Kevin Campbell Stays Grounded in His Identity at DECIEM

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The same curiosity and directional variety that defined the beginning of Kevin Campbell’s nontraditional career path might also be what made him so uniquely qualified for his future roles. Campbell, the director of global facilities and environments for beauty brand DECIEM, is a Trinidad and Tobago native. He grew up professionally in Toronto and would eventually work global contracts across the North American, European, Middle Eastern, and African markets for iconic brands like the Four Seasons Hotels, Shangri La Hotels, and McDonald’s Europe.

Campbell’s multidisciplinary excellence is due, at least in part, to his commitment to carving out a professionally authentic and collaborative leadership style for himself. This style pulls from his experience in consulting followed by general contracting, then international design, construction, and facility management.

The director jokes that while the very beginning of his career was defined by having no idea what he was doing, his tenacity, curiosity, and sensitivity to fostering strategic relationships allowed him to make intentional pivots along his career path. As a result, he continues to increase his skill set and understand every perspective of a build—from conception to execution.

The director’s continued evolution ultimately resulted in an epiphany of sorts. He realized that his unique perspective mattered. There was no need to try to fit, what he believed, was the prototype of a so-called successful leader.

“One of the things that I have found over time is that as a Caribbean-born person and a Black man, I have become more comfortable with accepting that my experience and my perspective matters,” Campbell says. “It was a bit tricky to fully synthesize this perspective when I was a younger professional because I always thought that I needed to morph myself into this idea of people’s version of a successful senior manager. I’ve come to understand that all my experiences serve me, which allows me to contribute a unique perspective to the team. I am able to bring my complete self to my work.”

Campbell has built McDonald’s locations across Europe. There’s a 200,000-square-foot customer fulfillment center in Montréal, as well as day spas for women used to luxury. He’s learned to communicate with all manner of project stakeholders, from senior leadership to on-site construction workers. Now, he oversees global facilities, 20 retail locations, five corporate offices, and 13 warehouses and distribution centers across the world for DECIEM.

Equally important, the director has a team of international brokers that he collaborates with to acquire different facilities, depending on the strategy of the moment. At present, he’s engaged in maximizing the lab facilities and creative spaces at DECIEM’s Toronto-based headquarters.

“I’ve purposefully set out to get more exposure to other aspects of the business and understand how they all contribute to execution of the company’s vision. Sure, you got this lease renewed, but how does that fit into the larger strategic picture of the company?”

Kevin Campbell

When it comes to leading his teams, Campbell says he’s always been a consensus-builder and collaborative leader. While that leadership style has always been his natural inclination, there are other skills he’s had to build out with more intention.

“I have had to work to develop an awareness around internal team structures within my department and how we inevitably support the overall vision of the company,” the director says. “At times, it is easy to become insular in my world. So, I’ve purposefully set out to get more exposure to other aspects of the business and understand how they all contribute to execution of the company’s vision. Sure, you got this lease renewed, but how does that fit into the larger strategic picture of the company?”

Campbell is also incredibly grateful for the mentors he had early on in his career. He was green and he knew it. But Campbell had a mentor—a fellow Caribbean-born professional—who may have seen something of himself in the young person eager to learn his trade.

“I remember him telling me that he was going to push me, which he did! My whole world opened up from there,” Campbell exclaims. “That was where I began articulating that, as a multidisciplinary professional, my value proposition lay in leveraging the expertise of my teams to achieve a successful project. That was where I learned to speak the multiple professional languages of different industries, depending on the teams that I had been engaging with. My experience with this mentor also solidified my desire to work internationally and seek out new and different opportunities.”

At this moment in his career, Campbell performs at his highest potential because he stays connected to what matters most: his family, culture, Caribbean heritage, and identity as a Black man. This is what allows him to be the most effective builder, leader, advocate, and multidisciplinary professional he can be. What keeps him whole, though, is his family. And hopefully, he notes, embracing his authentic self at work can encourage those coming up behind him to do the same.

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