STORY/

I've spent twenty years working out how to make digital products work better for the people using them.

I worked in motorsport in the late 90s, close to precision engineering, obsessive attention to detail, things that had to work under pressure. I tested games at Sega in the early 2000s, which I failed at, but it gave me something: an instinct for how people actually interact with products versus how designers think they will. I studied in London. I backpacked Spain, Europe, parts of Asia. I moved to Australia. Each of those things taught me something about how people solve problems in different contexts, under different constraints, with different expectations.

The freelance years pulled it together. Building websites and apps for whoever needed them, I learned to listen before I designed, to ask what success actually meant for the person in front of me rather than the person I imagined.

The work that shaped me most was Leadership Hub, where I joined as founding designer. We built an always-on global platform for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), helping 1,500 leaders across one of the world's largest hotel companies learn from each other, five minutes a day. I shaped the product direction, the brand, and the experience from the ground up. It won awards. More importantly, it worked.

Thomas International followed, first UX hire, eventually Head of UX and Product Design. I built the design function from nothing, established the practice, and led the modernisation of a 40-year-old psychometrics platform, opening up what Thomas had spent 40 years building to the people who needed it most.

I now work with a small number of founders as a fractional design and product leader. Close to the work, not above it.