I’m Asad Syrkett (ser-ket), an American design editor, writer, and brand strategist based in Milan, Italy. Since October 2025, I’ve served as Head of Editorial for AD Italia.
From 2020 to 2024, I was Editor in Chief of Elle Decor. Previously, I ran New York operations and business development for Hem, an international furniture brand and design studio based in Stockholm, Sweden. I led Hem’s relationships with key U.S. clients, from corporate VPs to the creative minds behind some of the country’s best architecture firms.
Before my time at Hem, I spent a decade as an editor of award-winning print and digital media: I was Deputy Editor at the design and cities website Curbed, where I managed the site's senior reporting and editing staff and directed special projects. I started my career on the editorial teams at Architectural Digest and The Architectural Record.
I graduated from Columbia University in the City of New York with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a concentration in the History & Theory of Architecture. I studied with, among others, Suzanne Stephens and Barry Bergdoll, and was an archivist and assistant to Kenneth Frampton at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning.
Beyond the written word, I’ve guest-lectured at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts in New York City; moderated numerous panels and roundtables; and co-hosted two seasons of a weekly interview podcast (you can listen to all 20 episodes of The Curbed Appeal on iTunes).