Alumni Story – Martin Lenon
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Martin Lenon and I currently work as a Senior Design Strategist at Globant, an IT/software development company. Together with an amazing team, we help our clients understand their customers so they can build better digital experiences for them. I had started my career in financial services before finding my way into design research and consulting.
Where are you originally from?
I was born in Manila, Philippines but grew up in Kobe, Japan and Cincinnati, OH. I have also spent time in Boston, MA where I did my undergrad and worked for a few years prior to coming to NYC. Currently based in Brooklyn.
What year did you graduate from the MS SDM program?
2015
What project/job/event/research are you currently working on? Please tell us a little about the impetus, content and expected impact of this work.
Working on a variety of projects. On the client-facing side, mainly working with a media/entertainment client to redesign and streamline a critical part of their website for their live streaming product. We also support them a lot with telling their story internally to increase organizational buy in and drive change across their global operations. Internally at Globant, we’re experiencing a lot of growth and changes, so I’m part of the team that’s helping better define our strategic and research processes so we can share and apply best practices across our accounts.
In what ways did the work/research you did at Parsons prepare you for that transition and the work you’re doing now?
From a tactical perspective, the different projects I worked on at school gave me experience writing discussion guides, practicing different frameworks for synthesizing, and designing decks that has helped me in each of my projects post graduation. My second year project involved mocking up an app (groundbreaking, right?) for overseas remittances/money transfers, so working on designing that was helpful since it gave me hands on experience on InVision and Illustrator, which I use routinely today. We also have a big financial services company as a client, so the research I did for that project has been interesting to keep in mind whenever I’m working on an initiative for that client.
How has the MS-SDM program challenged you to grow as a Strategic Designer?
I was in a totally different environment prior to coming to Parsons, so I feel like the program was pretty instrumental in developing the foundation I have as a strategist. My main takeaway from Parsons was an ability to approach a problem from different lenses and always have the customer/human centered perspective in mind. So coming into a firm where clients have unique and diverse business needs, I am able to challenge and critique their (and our own) assumptions to design research that will yield new insights and make a bigger impact.
If you were to give one piece of advice to current students, what would it be?
Be a sponge. Take in as much as you can, so you can build a personal library/archive of frameworks and approaches that you can pull from once you join an agency or launch your own business. You’ll have plenty of time to practice and figure out which ones work best for your own style or the type of initiative you’re working on. I do, however, also encourage students to find ways (personal projects, freelance, etc..) to apply learnings as soon as possible just to make things more real rather than theoretical, and to strengthen your network professionally. It’s so cliche, but so many things can come from a simple conversation over coffee or drinks with people you may meet along the way.
What book are you reading right now?