Angelique Robb
Angelique Robb is the Founder and CEO of SYNKD Media, a platform dedicated to connecting and inspiring professionals across the landscape industry. Based in Lafayette, Louisiana, she leads a community that bridges the design, build, and maintenance sectors, fostering collaboration and innovation while promoting sustainable practices. Angelique is passionate about elevating industry standards and is always searching for better ways of doing things, highlighting businesses that challenge the status quo and drive meaningful change. Through SYNKD Media, she organizes memberships, podcasts, live events, and publications that research and showcase innovative products and methods, helping business owners deliver higher-quality services while improving profitability.
Prior to founding SYNKD, Angelique spent over a decade in the oil and energy sector as a petroleum engineer, managing large teams and complex projects worldwide. While living in Scotland, she transitioned into outdoor living design and construction, launching Papillon Designs and Landscaping Ltd, an award-winning firm recognized for its innovation and sustainability. Her experience abroad exposed her to European approaches, which are often 10 to 20 years ahead of U.S. practices. When she returned to the U.S. in 2019, she recognized the opportunity to bring those advanced methods, products, and collaborative practices to a highly fragmented American landscape industry estimated at $700 to $900 billion when all segments are considered.
Angelique is recognized as a visionary leader and tireless advocate for industry improvement. Despite running a small team of two full-time staff, supported by freelancers, she produces multiple podcasts per week, writes articles, manages magazine content, and coordinates speakers for events, all while researching innovative solutions to connect the silos of her industry. Her initiatives not only inspire professional growth but also address the challenges of an underpaid and overworked workforce. Known for her collaborative spirit, strategic insight, and forward-thinking approach, Angelique continues to shape the landscape industry on an international scale while empowering business owners to thrive.
• Louisiana State University - BS, Petroleum Engineering
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge and opportunity in our field is that our industry is very fractured. A lot of people think of it as a $150 billion industry, but when you count up all of the parts of the industry, we're more like a $700 to $900 billion dollar industry in only the U.S. But it's very fractured - 86% of the businesses are 9 employees or less. Not only do the disciplines not liaise with each other, but you also have the small companies and the humongous companies, and that chasm between them. Construction is a separate industry than horticulture, which is a separate industry from landscape architecture, but we all need to work together to actually develop outdoor spaces that adapt to the weather and are good for people. The opportunity is that Europe is probably 10 to 20 years ahead of the U.S., so there are game-changing solutions for business owners that you have to be searching for. A lot of the technologies and innovations actually sit across disciplines, and if you're in one discipline, you may not see the benefit unless you talk to the other discipline as well. We're trying to get every discipline in the outdoor space synchronized and open up the dialogue between the disciplines.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
What drives me is seeing the climate changing and knowing we can do better. When I found out that Louisiana, where I am and where I grew up, has a freshwater aquifer that is depleting at a record rate even when we have a lot of rain, it really hit me. I see outdoor spaces and how we've been constructing things for decades - we've concreted up so much and made so many surface areas impermeable that our trees and horticulture aren't getting the water they need, and our groundwater isn't being replenished like nature wants it to. I see trees dying and construction companies damaging root systems because they don't know better, and it's so upsetting because we need trees. This is so simple - we just need to communicate. Sometimes I get frustrated that we're not making enough of a difference quick enough. I want to really make a difference for people, and I want to be easy to find for those people who are looking for this information. It's about opening up the dialogue between disciplines and building a community of like-minded professionals that are open to change, open to listening to people, but also open to sharing their successes.
Locations
SYNKD
Lafayette, LA 70503