Reading Room to open four international offices

Chief executive Margaret Manning, who works from Reading Room’s  Singapore office, will head up the Shanghai office, which is expected to open when a location has been found ‘mid-year’, according to the consultancy.

Manning will be joined by a handful of senior staff from the Singapore office and will forge relationships with Shanghai universities and look for local talent, according to Reading Room consultant Freddie Haygate.

‘There’ll be three or four business development people and people who can pitch, but design and development will be done from the Singapore office to begin with,’ says Haygate.

Haygate expects Reading Room’s work to come ‘mainly from government and education sectors’ and confirms that the consultancy is already in discussions with new clients in Shanghai.

Reading Room will then look to set up in Thailand ‘within three months,’ a location within Brazil ‘within six months’ and Washington, USA ‘next year,’ according to Haygate.