Services
What I can help you with
Design leadership
I help you take your design team to the next level as a senior consultant alongside your leadership. Or as interim leader, in which case I also help you hire the permanent one.
- For
- Companies whose design team has outgrown the way it was set up, leadership teams who want a senior design partner to raise the bar, or teams without a design leader for a period.
- What we do
- I work on the leadership of design with you rather than advising from the side: setting the bar for the craft, shaping the structure and ways of working, coaching the people who lead the team, and hiring well.
- How I work
- As a consultant I work alongside your leadership, with clear goals for what should be different when I leave. The work in my cases took years in permanent roles, and I bring the same playbook in a compressed form. I work as a player-coach, so I can also step into the design work where the team needs it most.
- If you need an interim leader
- When the role is empty, between leaders or during parental or sick leave, I take on the leadership role for a period, keep the team running and help you hire the right permanent leader.
- What you leave with
- A stronger team, a working operating model and leaders who can carry it on, plus a permanent hire if that was part of the brief.
Design function setup
I help you work out what design should be in your company: which roles to hire, where design belongs, what to expect from it and what value it should create.
- For
- Companies about to make their first design hires, leadership teams unsure what to expect from design, or organisations where design exists but does not yet create clear value.
- What we do
- Two to three weeks of interviews, observation and a review of how product decisions are made today. Then a concrete recommendation on the roles and profiles to hire, where design should sit, how it should work with product and engineering, and what results to expect and when.
- What you leave with
- A plan for your design function that your leadership team agrees on, role profiles ready for recruitment, and a realistic picture of what design will deliver in the first year.
Product direction
Getting a product bet from vague to concrete. Discovery, concept and prototype, and a validated strategic narrative a leadership team can actually align behind.
- For
- Teams with a roadmap but no direction, a new bet nobody can picture yet, or a zero-to-one product that needs to exist before it can be funded.
- What we do
- Research where the answer is genuinely unknown, many quick concepts, and prototypes real enough to test with customers and to argue over internally.
- How I work
- Hands-on, mostly in AI and code, Figma as needed. I set the direction and then build enough of it to be real: prototypes people can use, not decks describing them. I take the lead role on a product area rather than picking up tickets against someone else’s spec.
- What you leave with
- A validated concept, a working prototype - often ready to ship - and a narrative your leadership team agrees on.
Thought partnership
Recurring one-to-one sessions for design leaders working through team, org and career decisions without a peer to test them on.
- For
- Heads of design, design managers and founders who own design - anyone who is the most senior design person in the building.
- What we do
- A standing conversation. You bring what is actually on your mind and we work it rather than talk around it.
- What you leave with
- Clearer decisions, and a sounding board who has made most of these mistakes already.