[5] Maini Søgaard was born to a Danish mother and Indian father and grew up in Saudi Arabia and Dubai.
[6] Maini Søgaard studied at Copenhagen Business School, and then started her career by working at the multinational consumer goods corporation Procter and Gamble, the consulting firm McKinsey, and for the Danish chef and Noma co-founder Claus Meyer.
According to her, she has done so by re-thinking the traditional fee approach in architecture, hiring the right business staff, checking project timelines and budgets regularly throughout the year, and insisting on being paid by customers.
In 2017, Bjarke Ingels Group was criticised for the underrepresentation of women in architecture, as Maini Søgaard the only woman out of 12 partners.
[10] Maini Søgaard's response was to argue that half of the managers were women, as well as 60% of directors, and that they had leading policies regarding maternity/paternity leaves and wage equality.