ST. LOUIS – The HFW Companies (HFW), in a move aimed at driving greater multi-disciplinary collaboration among HFW Company firms and building a repeatable strategy for organic growth, has created a new senior vice president of organic growth position and hired veteran architecture and engineering (AE) industry strategist Susanne ‘Charli’ Buchberger for the role.
Buchberger, based in Chicago, is an environmental engineer and business strategist with more than 25 years of experience driving growth, profitability, and organizatio
nal transformation. She most recently served as strategist and director of business development for SmithGroup, an integrated design firm, working across architecture, engineering, planning and related disciplines. There, she partnered with firm leadership to shape enterprise growth strategy, unlock cross-market opportunities, and strengthen pursuit performance nationwide.
Earlier in her career, Buchberger held senior leadership roles at global business and financial consulting firms, including Deloitte, Marsh McLennan, and Arthur Andersen, where she advised Fortune 500 and middle‑market clients on environmental risk management, strategic planning, sustainability, and complex transaction-related challenges. Her work spanned multiple industries and capital-intensive sectors, combining technical expertise with board-level advisory experience to help organizations manage risk, improve performance, and position for long-term growth.
“Charli is a great new addition to our leadership team,” said Matthew Westphal, chief growth officer of HFW. “She brings to HFW and our unique operations platform an important new dimension aimed at strengthening the collaborative connections among our network of AE firms and developing new strategies to unlock bigger, multi-disciplinary infrastructure design projects, new market sectors, and repeatable revenue opportunities for HFW and our network.”
Buchberger earned a Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and an Associate of Science degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
“HFW has assembled an exceptional, multi‑disciplinary foundation, and I see a tremendous opportunity to more intentionally align that expertise in service of our clients,” Buchberger said of her new role. “By activating the HFW platform as one connected ecosystem, we can pursue more ambitious projects, expand into new markets, and establish a more consistent engine for growth.”
HFW, a professional services company founded in 2020, is a premier, best-in-class, national network of AE companies. HFW, in its role, amplifies the collective expertise of its network and provides the operations platform and other resources needed to create greater long-term value for its network firms, employees, clients, investors, and the communities it serves.
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For more information about The HFW Companies and its new senior vice president of organic growth, contact Daniel Bates at 412.310.3167 or at daniel.bates@hfwcompanies.com.