This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Angelique Robb, founder of Synkd Magazine and Synkd Live, to trace her journey from oil rigs and deep-well engineering to redefining what collaboration looks like in the landscape industry.

Angelique shares stories from her early career as a petroleum engineer, working offshore by helicopter in her teens, before shifting into project management and later launching a landscape design firm in Scotland. That blend of systems thinking and hands-on operations led her to notice the fragmentation in the U.S. landscape space. Through Synkd, she’s now working to synchronize design, build, and maintain under one roof, while surfacing key technical and business gaps.

Justin and Angelique explore the “missing middle” of landscape project management, the opportunity in specialty subcontractor collaboration, and why small business owners hit a ceiling when they try to do everything alone. The episode also covers how Synkd Live New Orleans is structured differently from traditional trade shows, and what both founders believe is holding the industry back and what’s about to push it forward.

Angelique’s early career offshore and how project integration shaped her systems lens

Why most landscape companies get stuck at 4–6 employees and how to scale beyond that

The problem with the word “landscaper” and why she rebranded to Synkd

How U.S. firms lag in stormwater design and what Europe’s 20-year lead teaches us

Angelique and Justin close by comparing private equity to “sweat equity” and laying out the ownership mindset that can help small firms scale without selling out.