As a woman working in a Male-dominated Industry, Construction and Design, Shaila Rizvi admits that being a female never deterred her from realizing her goals of becoming one of the top-notch interior designers in her area. Shaila is an Interior Designer but to get her designs well-crafted, with the finish of an admirable grade, she donned the hat of a contractor. She took up turnkey residential and commercial interior design projects in New Delhi, and adjoining cities of Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Meerut. Rizvi reveals that often she was required to compete with male contractors for work and had to face the impact of gender bias. But she chose to persist her efforts despite the odds and created a place for herself. A designer charged with provoking change in the field of interior, Shaila encourages her clients to use eco-friendly materials that eliminate risks to human health and the environment. She seeks to enjoy design projects that are at the intersection of design, human experience, and health. Rizvi started her Design Consultancy in 2016, but her project management experience in the sector picked from 2017 mid onwards. Since then, she has completed over 35 interior design projects. Some of her work includes Homes of Shashi Shekhar, Chief Editor – Hindustan Times, Chandramauli Kumar Prasad – Supreme Court Judge & Chairman – Press Council of India; and Mahender Singh Malik – Director, Oppo India.
In all, she has taken up a wide variety of interior design assignments. Her work is rich in variety, which makes her a versatile designer. But amid successes are the inevitable lessons that come through failed endeavours and unprecedented stumbling blocks. Rizvi’s lens appears to be untainted by unrealistic situations, and that is perhaps most evident in how she handled Covid -19 crisis and what it has taught her. “Prepare for the unexpected!” she declares. “I think my leadership style has remained unchanged through the pandemic, it’s the performance field that had definitely shifted. During the pandemic year, I decided to invest time in attaining higher education. She enrolled for the Master’s Program at the Parsons School of Design, which brought her a lot more design clarity. During this academic stint, she found her core area of her interest to be the designs based on the theme of care and empathy
