Senior Interior Designer | Naples, FL

Project Focus: Luxury Residential | Private Jets/Aircraft Interiors

Type: Full-Time

Working Style: In Office | Full Time

This Senior Interior Designer will serve as a creative leader and trusted expert across the studio’s high-end residential and aviation projects. In this role, you will lead, inspire and guide the design vision from concept through installation, ensuring thoughtful, innovative, and luxurious outcomes that meet the exceptionally high standards of the studio and its discerning clientele.

This role will primarily focus on luxury residential projects, with involvement in private aviation interiors. You will collaborate closely with the Principal Designer, Studio Lead and other key leaders within the firm, while mentoring junior team members, and serving as a primary point of contact for clients throughout the design journey.

The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, highly organized, and confident managing multiple complex, multi-layered projects with the utmost professionalism and discretion. Our studio is recognized for delivering deeply personalized, globally inspired interiors for an exclusive clientele. You will thrive here if you enjoy creating sophisticated design experiences within in a culture rooted in teamwork, trust, respect, inspiration, and exceptional service.

Key Responsibilities

Lead, guide, collaborate and mentor the design team through all phases of residential and aircraft interior projects.
Develop and drive the overall creative design direction for each project, guiding the design narrative and presenting concepts, materials, and solutions to clients with clarity and confidence.
Act as the primary design liaison for clients, managing expectations and ensuring a thoughtful, service-driven approach throughout the project.
Manage and oversee project documentation, consultant coordination, team communication, and material/furnishings selections.
Partner closely with the Principal Designer and Studio Lead on scheduling, budgeting, and project resourcing to ensure on-time and on-budget delivery.
Conduct site visits and oversee installation phases to ensure design intent is executed at the highest level.
Coordinate closely with architects, contractors, fabricators, and consultants throughout project execution.
Conduct and participate in design critiques, design reviews, and creative forums that elevate project outcomes and support team development.
Take ownership of project success, balancing design excellence, client expectations, budgets, schedules, and team leadership throughout the project lifecycle.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Interior Design or Architecture.
10+ years of interior design experience, with demonstrated success in high-end residential design (aviation design experience is a strong plus).
Proficiency in AutoCAD, SketchUp, InDesign, and Studio Designer required.
Strong presentation skills and an ability to clearly communicate design visions to clients, industry partners and internal teams.
Experience managing teams, providing mentorship, and delegating appropriate responsibilities effectively.
Exceptional organization, attention to detail, and ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously under defined budgets and timelines.
Comfort working in a fast-paced, dynamic, and highly collaborative design environment.
Valid driver’s license and reliable transportation.
Professional affiliations (ASID, IIDA, NCIDQ certification or candidacy) are a plus.
Ability to travel for project installations, client meetings, and sourcing as needed.

Compensation + Benefits

Competitive compensation package, including benefits and growth opportunities, commensurate with experience.

About Frank Ponterio

Since founding his namesake firm in 1994, Chicago- and Florida-based designer Frank Ponterio has been driven by a mission to create one-of-a-kind environments for his clients that truly reflect their lifestyles. Frank has an innate ability to read people and places, to walk into a space and know exactly what it needs. Each project is tailored to clients’ unique wants and needs as well as their desired lifestyle. The firm’s work possesses the highest standards of excellence and delicately balances elegance with ease, artistry with approachability; these characteristics are non-negotiable for Frank and his team. Everyone at Frank Ponterio has an unwavering determination to deliver the absolute best, ensuring expectations are not just met, but exceeded, and that the firm’s work stands the test of time.

In addition to historic preservation of heirloom homes and luxury residential interior design, Frank Ponterio’s work includes boutique hotels such as the Deer Path Inn in Lake Forest, Illinois which has consistently been named among the best resort hotels in the country by Travel and Leisure magazine, numerous private country clubs as well as private client jets.

Frank has also partnered with several renowned firms to develop exclusive fabric, furnishing and accessory lines. First tapped by the Kravet family, industry leader and owner of Lee Jofa, to design a line of understated yet elegant upholstery pieces, Ponterio subsequently launched a collection of furniture, lighting and accessories for Arteriors Home. Most recently, he released his first fabric and trimmings collection for the legendary Clarence House, the first guest designer in the company’s history. Available in more than 100 countries and represented by some of the world’s finest designer showrooms such as Holly Hunt and Kneedler Fauchère, the Clarence House collection was inspired by Frank’s strong ties to Italy where his parents were born and where he spends summer months with his wife Becky and daughter Isabella visiting with family and friends while sourcing unique art, furnishings, and textiles for clients’ homes.

Frank Ponterio

Latest Openings

Senior Interior Designer