Twenty years of UX and product design, accelerated by AI.

I'm a lead UX and product designer who has worked across HR tech, learning tech, SaaS, hospitality, healthcare, ecommerce and publishing. I set the design direction and stay hands-on. I also run Lean Otter, a product strategy and design studio, and build my own apps.

I take products from discovery and user research through wireframing, prototyping, testing and iteration. Before designing anything, I agree where we are starting and how we will know we have succeeded, then measure the result. I work with product managers, developers, customer success and senior leaders, so everyone is aligned on what we are building and why.

Since July 2025 I've worked independently on products including Carnilove for Vafo, OpenBlend and Vokser: research and information architecture for a full ecommerce site, a Figma design system for a meeting platform, and a product audit for an AI coaching platform.

At Thomas International I was the first UX hire and left as Head of UX and Product Design, leading a team of up to six designers and owning the design system. I also designed Perform, the cloud replacement for a legacy on-premise platform. Before that I was founding designer at the Leadership Hub, designing and running the IHG Leaders Lounge for 1,500 leaders.

I started out in Photoshop, moved through Sketch and InVision, and now work in Figma with AI at each stage, down to code. I build working prototypes in Astro, Next.js and Tailwind, and I design and code my own apps. At Thomas I contributed to ThomAI, an AI-powered feature that helps colleagues connect across an organisation.

Alongside the Leadership Hub I freelanced for ten years in the UK and Australia, for marketing agencies, SEO agencies, consultancies, a franchise publisher and healthcare organisations. Earlier still came motorsport and a short stint testing games at Sega. Both taught me how people actually use things, which is rarely how designers expect.