Inspiring People To More Sustainable Lives ‒ Exclusive Interview With Monserrat Menendez

Experienced designer with years of inspired and professional achievements, constantly staying in touch with the latest developments of sustainable concepts. Currently working as an Interior Designer for her own brand Senom Design serving NYC and Tri-State Area, Hamptons and Connecticut involving clients towards sustainability from two perspectives: Inspiring people to more sustainable lives through their renovations and consulting companies for better practices towards sustainability from their operations and business relationship.

Monserrat Menendez, Interior Designer

What is your business name and how do you help your clients?

Senom Design, we offer consulting services towards sustainable environments from a homeowner perspective to a manufacturer

What kind of audience do you target your business towards?

Builders, Homeowners, Manufacturers.

What are your current goals for your business?

In all honesty, as a business owner, I have many goals that I have set for my company but above all I would say my focus is to be able, through my work in the design industry to become an inspiring figure for those that embrace sustainable living, building, and projecting. Along the ride build strong business relationships and a worldwide network.

What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?

Promote mine and the companies’ services with a strong sustainability belief and ultimately deliver better environments to those that will require our services.

Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?

My family values and my multicultural background. I am a first-generation US born from Mexican parents and was raised between the two countries, I have always traveled around the world and thanks to all these factors in my life I have concluded that all countries and cultures have the same common denominator. We all want to leave a legacy to the next generations to come by being fair and just, even more so now that we have more and more access to sensitive and important Data.

What is your work inspired by?

As mentioned before, traveling, has giving me the most inspiring possibility of encountering different cultures, ways of thinking and living has played a key role in driving me to always find new solutions or alternatives to today’s problems.

Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.

I came to the US after living in Mexico City for almost 5 years in 2018. Main purpose was to continue my education at the Graduate School of New York School Of Interior Design. Once I started the MS Program it completely opened my way of seen things differently. This while working full time at my first Corporate Job.

Thanks to this combination I have acquired a good sense of the two different perspectives and by interacting directly with final user I realized that must understand how important it is to start consuming way more responsibly. NYC is not an easy professional ambient, however from day one I have worked to build my own network in the com to create as much awareness as possible.

As part of my networking, I joined a community where I could have these conversations. With time and effort, after three months of being invited to volunteer to ASID NYC Metro Committee of Health, Wellness & Sustainability I was named Co-Chair of the Committee. The responsibility of this position also gives me an important opportunity to have a voice in educating our industry and users on how important it is to have awareness of better ways of living in today’s world.

If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?

Manufacturing. The laws are still getting adjusted to what the consummation of primary goods are. The good thing not everything is black and white. There’s a lot of grey area and we should participate with information.

Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.

The Pandemic. Believe it or not after staying in a 4 by 4 room sharing common spaces with roommates under stress and contingency rules makes you realize and appreciate what you have and don’t have. It never dawned on me that political leaders would oppose policies designed to save the lives of their citizenry and mitigate the personal and economic damage an outbreak was causing — things like rules about wearing masks or getting vaccinated. Also, it showed me how Science Education in this and a number of countries is woefully inadequate. As a result, people do not understand the iterative nature of science.

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