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The concept came from a book by the Leadership Hub's founder, Phil Dourado, The 60 Second Leader, built around short, daily habits rather than long-form training. That idea became the basis for a contract with IHG, working directly with their senior learning and development leadership to build the IHG Leaders Lounge, the platform we designed and built for them at the Leadership Hub.

The idea was, in effect, a Facebook for leaders, a genuinely unusual pitch at the time, social media wasn't yet mainstream and Myspace was still a going concern. Each day, members received a leadership tip by email, linking through to an article written by leadership coach Phil Dourado.

Members could comment on articles and on each other's comments, like or dislike content, and the format expanded over time to include video, audio, quotes, and guest posts, turning a simple daily tip into an ongoing conversation rather than a one-way broadcast.

I designed the entire front-end experience in Adobe Creative Suite, working on a Drupal back end, in close collaboration with stakeholders across the business.

The platform won awards from CIPD, ASTD, and Training Magazine, three of the learning and development industry's most established bodies. More importantly, it worked, an 11-year contract is its own evidence the product held up well beyond launch.

Two challenges ran through the entire project. The first was engagement: getting busy leaders to make time for anything daily, however short, is a genuinely hard problem, and one that had to be solved through format and content, not just reminders.

The second was trust. Publicly commenting on leadership and sharing personal experience in front of peers was new territory for most users, and the platform only worked once people believed it was a safe space to do that.

Underneath both, the tech stack of the time, Drupal and pre-mainstream social conventions, meant we were often building the pattern rather than following one.