Amberlight — Consultancy Director
As one of two executive directors at Amberlight, I helped grow it into a well-respected UCD consultancy over five years. I created the formats, the deliverables, the workshop structures, and the research frameworks we used — none of it was inherited, it all had to be figured out and built. We worked broadly within a double diamond approach, moving from research and discovery through to prototyping and delivery, and that framework shaped how I've thought about design work ever since. We grew to a team of 18 and delivered projects across the UK, Europe, the US, and India.
Our clients included Sony PlayStation, Microsoft, Channel 4, O2, T-Mobile, Samsung, Mars, and AOL. I looked after all of our pitch work and proposals, and alongside the commercial work I directed a non-client academic research programme, which was something I was always quite proud of.
Lighthouse Experience — Design Consultancy
My second agency ran for nine years and was a leaner, more design-focused operation. I often brought in practitioners to help with delivery, and the focus was very much on on-project coaching for in-house teams. Prototyping was really at the heart of what we did — web, iOS, interactive experiences — dozens of them over the years, always with an emphasis on getting something tangible in front of people as quickly as possible.
Clients included BBC, Camelot, Google, Channel 4, ITV, Sony, Credit Suisse, and Hive Healthcare. We prototyped innumerable lottery experiences for the National Lottery operator, various BBC digital products, and I was involved in the first iPlayer design, which remains one of the more interesting things I've worked on.
Workshops and Offsites
Through both agencies I ended up running a lot of stakeholder workshops and offsites — C-suite sessions for United Technologies, Credit Suisse, and the BBC, offsites for Microsoft, Mars, and Red Bull. Getting senior people in a room, getting them aligned, and leaving with something concrete became a real part of what I did.
ASOS — Head of UX & UI | Area Head of Product
Six years at ASOS, the UK's leading fashion e-commerce destination. Over that time I built and led a team of 24 designers and researchers, organised around a three-dimensional matrix: skill set (research vs design), product vertical (search & browse, convert & buy, customer support & retention), and surface (web, iOS, Android). We also focusen internal tooling and accessibility ran through the whole structure as a cross-cutting specialism.
I defined, by supporting the practictioners, most team operations — crystalising the team's best UX research and design approaches. I recruited ever member of the fantastic team, and defined the recruitment strategies. I worked with the team to design the physical office environment we all worked in, and also specified the software stack (Sketch/Zeplin/UserTesting.com, soon to be Figma).
I fostered a strong prototyping habits and a culture of consensus-building workshops. The orgnaisation design was as important as the product design. Success in one leads to success in the other.
Jumia — Product Director, Porto
I relocated to Porto to lead product and design for the largest pan-African e-commerce platform, a Rocket Internet company operating across 13 African countries. The biggest markets were Nigeria, Morocco, and Egypt. I managed teams of product managers and designers spread across Porto, Cairo, and Nairobi, and travelled regularly between the offices.
As Product Director I owned the B2C e-commerce app, on Android, iOS and Web. I oversaw the agile product and design teams working across quite different cultural contexts. In short but fulfilling 12 months we:
- delivered a new checkout
- built and integrated a new promotion engine
- Started a culture of prototyping and customer research
In addition to the B2C eCom product, I also managed the entire design team across B2C but also Finance, Food Delivery and Merchant Systems.
Thousands of Sessions, Hands-On
Over the years I've personally run thousands of UX sessions, both in-person and online, moderated and unmoderated. I've always preferred to be in the room rather than reading someone else's summary — it's where the unexpected things tend to surface.
In my agency days I conducted international ethnography sessions for Sony, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Mars, and BlackBerry. That meant visiting people at their dining room tables, watching them use products over the holiday period, sitting in their offices for days at a time. We also ran eye tracking studies, focus groups, and launched extensive Customer Insight programmes across the US and Europe.
Accessbility
Based on prio agency experience, at ASOS I established the programme to run one-to-one sessions with people with different disabilities and access needs, testing prototypes and live builds with the people who relied on the app most.
Many Types of Research
Quant, qual, ethnography, eye tracking, accessibility audits — I have taken the methods I learned at Manchester University and UCL and developed them for commercial settings - sometimes rigorous, sometimes pragmatic and casual.
Increasing commercial focus
The journey from UX research and design to commercial product realities is well charted. I had a headstart by running agency finance early on.
Some wins and areas of focus:
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Wishlisting and saved-items redesign that contributed to a 2.3x higher LTV for users who engaged with the feature vs. those who didn't
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A navigation redesign that pushed 10% more customers into CVR-enhancing in-app search and filtering journeys, demonstrated through statistically significant AB testing
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Tracking the unit economics of transactions in terms of unit costs, partner fees, payment processing margins, and customer acquisition cost per booking
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Monitoring the margin contribution of checkout add-ons and upsells, not just their take-up rate
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11% increase in CVR by introducing social proof into PLPs and PDPs
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Improving the bottom line on transaction by reducing return rate by 10% via clothes fitting tools and visualiser. Saving an estimated £8-12m annually in reverse logistics costs
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Working with data science to build a returns propensity model — high-return SKUs flagged for enhanced imagery, sizing guidance, and review prominence
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Encouraging clearing thinking on discount strageies and the negative impact on customer and business outcomes
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Focusing on customer aquistion costs and LTV
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Checkout redesign that dramatically improved CVR by 0.5pp in 13 countries
Tooling to track these have included Adobe Analytics, Mix Panel, GA4, Metabase, AB Tasty, many custom platforms, and a good amount of SQL wrangling.
Giftory — CPO, Day One
I created the launch roadmap, specificying the product stack, and sketched the very first flows that went live (in a very MVP form!) three months later. Fast forward three years and Giftory was enjoying $30m Business Value p/a. This 0-1 product development required wearing many hats - strategic product thiking but also very hands-on creation of specifications, analytics and SQL, and primary research and design sketches.
It was a genuine zero-to-one — not "early stage", but genuinely from nothing. Just a slack instance and not even a name yet. The product had ecommerce and booking components and required integration with multiple universes of experinces: hotels, restaurants, cinema tickets, gift cards, cooking classes, and thousands of one-off partnerships.
As one of a launch C-suite of five, I was CPO from day one. That meant product strategy, design, front-end work, partner integrations, API architecture for booking systems — whatever was needed next. Alongside the CTO and Product Owner, we recruited internationally and set up the remote agile process that would keep Giftory moving. My push was always for prototypes over documentation and as much customer research as possible.
Remote International Team
The team was distributed across the US, UK, France, Dubai, and the Philippines — an American product for the American market, with remote talent. We defined the work for developers in Manila and Dubai, and I liaised with dozens of American experience providers — hotels, restaurants, activity operators — many of whom we integrated via API.
Meanwhile, After Hours...
Alongside everything you've read about above, there's been a parallel career running for the last 16 years that doesn't fit neatly into the 9-to-5 story. I've been designing stage shows for a chart-topping band, producing a holographic orchestra, building interactive installations, and writing the software to run them.
I've sold out the Royal Albert Hall (several times), created projection-mapped experiences for festivals across two continents, and built things out of wood, solder, and Open Frameworks. It's a different world from eCommerce KPIs and design systems, but somehow the two have always fed each other.
Public Service Broadcasting — 14 Years and Counting
I create visuals and set design Public Service Broadcasting. We've had 5 chart-bothering studio albums and two live albums. Our sell our shows at the Royal Albert Hall are big on visuals and immersion. Next stop Alexendra Palace in September 26!
I design the stage show and all the visuals for every tour. The concepts follow the albums quite closely — The Race for Space, Berlin, the last flight of Amelia Earhart — and I work with archive footage, motion graphics, lighting, stage props, and full stage builds to bring them to life. Once way, I looked afetr all fabrication: the woodwork, the soldering and everything else in between. Latterly it's more about concepts and ideas - my soldering skills never really were up to scratch! But maybe it's not too late.
PSB live — stage visuals in action
AR and VR Concepts
I've also been developing AR and VR concepts for the band, exploring how the immersive live experience might extend beyond the venue itself.
Supernova Spectacular
This is a holographic show with a live orchestra that I've been creating from scratch. I produced all of the visuals — some myself, some specced out and commissioned from other designers — and designed all of the staging and setup.
It started in 2025 and I'm still pushing it forward. It's the kind of project where you have to invent the workflow as you go, because there isn't really a manual for holographic orchestral production yet, certainly not on a sensible budget.
The Magic Wall
The Magic Wall was a portable projection mapping installation — essentially a show in a box. I designed it, built it, and wrote all the software myself. It became a regular fixture at festivals across the US and UK, and at a London night called White Mink for quite a few years.
The software started life in Flash (!) and I later rebuilt it in Open Frameworks, and then finally simply using Resolume.
It's sometimes nice over in teh minor key
Its been a joy to create some pleasingly barmy and low budget frivolities. Lets think about:
- An internet enabled goat
- A light trumpet
- Portable neon signs
- Light up party furniture
Dance Productions and Artistic Installations
Beyond the band work there are dance productions and artistic installations too — the details of which deserve their own conversation at some point. The thread that runs through all of it is a fondness for making things that people can touch, walk through, and be surprised by.
The Digital CV
Alongside the physical making there's a digital design career that I'm fairly pleased with too.
I was involved in the first design of BBC iPlayer, worked on PlayStation titles including SingStar, and led the award-winning design team at ASOS. Through Lighthouse Experience I also designed for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Google, and Sony across all manner of platforms and products.
Web, iOS, Android, Voice, AR
At ASOS alone the team was working across web, iOS, Android, voice, and AR. Add in the agency years and you can include intranet, software, games, and quite a lot more. If it has a screen I've probably had a go at designing for it at some point.
Corporate Installations
Some nice projects bringing a sense of occasion into corporate events and offices.
