Leadership approaches & credentials
I am a strategic and hands-on design leader with many years of experience building and scaling high-performing, multidisciplinary teams across startups, agencies, consultancies, and global enterprises.
I have led design, product, and innovation teams at BCG X, Barclays, Great Fridays and Seren, driving strategic vision, fostering inclusive and high-impact design cultures, and mentoring the next generation of leaders
Adept at aligning executive stakeholders and guiding teams through complex challenges, I combine strategic foresight with hands-on leadership to deliver transformative products, services, and experiences.
My leadership principles
Build signposts, not roads
Empower teams and individuals to take ownership of their work, growth and the path to impact
Embrace challenge & perspectives
Open feedback, collaboration and diverse views make teams and solutions stronger
Enable connections & deep understanding
Sharing strengths, motivations and goals helps build culture & growth
Support fast & slow growth in everything
There is no one-size-fits-all to progression. Embrace and encourage growth and learning in different ways, contexts and speeds
Lose the ego & don’t be a d**k
A flat, inclusive environment motivates all to participate fully and proactively
Leadership capabilities & experience
Team & culture building
I have built, scaled and led full-spectrum design teams of different scales and contexts, with a focused emphasis on transparency, inclusivity and open feedback.
Led 10+ designers at Great Fridays, London
Led 40+ designers at Digital Ventures London
100+ designers across EMESA at BCG X
Project leadership & line management
My experience includes multi-disciplinary leadership & line management across diverse project types, including innovation, product build, digital transformation and iterative improvement.
Full management of Product, Engineering & Design teams
Hands-on Head of Design roles
Creative direction/QA
Stakeholder relationships
Building ongoing relationships with C-suite / executive stakeholders, driving advocacy and shared ownership internally.
Using design approaches to enable deep understanding of client/stakeholder needs and behaviours
Regular touchpoints with CEO / C-suite executives
Building strategies, frameworks & narratives to drive business growth and project impact internally
Facilitation & presentation
I can conceive, create and facilitate workshops, presentations, pitches and immersive experiences across group-sizes, industries and contexts .
Multi-industry, large-scale immersive innovation workshops
Narrative, proposal & pitch creation & delivery
Co-creation and discovery/learning environments
Industry experience & expertise
I have varied experience across a broad spectrum of B2B & B2C contexts/sectors, notably:
Finance / Fintech & insurance
Consumer / FMCG
Telco
Industrial Goods
Energy
Thought leadership
Throughout my career I have continued to drive bleeding edge thinking and approaches to stay ahead of the curve and embed future-proofed excellence in my teams
Articles, blog-posts and book chapters across varied publications
Development of new tools, approaches and frameworks for remote working, team norming, innovation & facilitation
Led future design initiatives, developing approaches to future human behaviours and interfaces
Coaching & mentoring
I am passionate about Growing individuals and teams by building inclusive environments where all can contribute and grow
Coached/Managed both managers & ICs
Defined & built social committees
Planned & facilitated strategic off-sites
Cross-functional partnerships
My roles have included representing the needs of design within organisations and supporting the wider business through in-depth partnerships with internal teams.
Developing L&D strategies/plans/budgets
Career development and progression planning
Staffing & resource planning
Recruitment approaches & talent strategies
DEI & ERG advocacy
Advocacy of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion through bottom-up affiliation and contribution.
I built and led the DEI/ERG committees within DV London
Created and delivered the global ‘Diversity Celebration Week’ initiative, where employees (both marginalised groups and allies) drove events, panels, initiatives and celebrations to raise awareness and affiliation with DEI priorities and agendas.
I have also co-authored our DEI strategy and am part of the regional Pride Leadership Committee.