Experience^(CV)

As a key contributor at CBRE, I held a diverse, global consultative role that spanned various aspects of Commercial Real Estate, including Valuations, Loan Services, Lease Administration, and QHSE in facilities management.

I partnered closely with product teams, particularly those at low maturity levels, to cultivate their understanding and appetite of UX. I achieved this by delivering tactical roadmap items that not only showcased the value of UX but also produced measurable results, leading to greater investments in UX.

As an inaugural member of the UXCoE and a member of the senior leadership team, together with my colleagues, I played a critical role in advancing Design Operations (Design Ops) organisation-wide. My contributions extended to core strategic initiatives, including Research, Product Analytics, and Design Systems.

A short contract, supporting the UX team generating a multi-channel user-centred perspective for a key sales category.

My role included planning research activities, script writing for interviews, designing tasks for competitive analysis, journey map creation and synthesising information from a range of data points including focus groups, NPS surveys and competitors to form a series of insights to inform the business on their future direction.

// Elsevier

Design lead within the core capabilities team, responsible for researching, planning and delivering a UI Framework and design system for Elsevier research products

Planned, designed and led a project to consolidate pattern libraries across 13 disparate product groups into on UI Framework/Design System.

Led weekly ‘UI Alignment’ meetings across teams from 4 countries/time zones, focusing on best-practices for systematic, responsive modular design, and accessibility.

Tailored innovative/bespoke processes for the audit and review of existing UI across wide-range of research tools/products.

Crafted robust business proposal for ROI on investment, using future-proof technology while ensuring design consistency, flexibility and efficiency were available ‘out-of-the-box’.

// Mendeley

Responsible for visual design at Mendeley, I led the team through a series of projects to improve the consistency, quality and efficiency of our products, solutions and user experience.

Guided cross-functional business leaders through a ‘brand evolution’ project to better harmonise the brand, values and equity with those of Elsevier, our parent company

Championed the need for a product design refresh and pattern library refactor, to scale our approach to designing and delivering consistency, flexibility and efficiency into our design work.

Led the team through a project to review, consolidate and optimise the Mendeley visual language, eventually doubling primary KPIs on the Feed product.

Managed and mentored 2 direct reports and owned visual/UI design across a team of 12, including mobile and desktop software products.

Network-wide responsibility for building a digital design function for diverse digital portfolio spanning news, classifieds and entertainment serving over 30-million unique monthly users

Built an in-house team of 3 delivering designs to supporting over 200 digital properties across all platforms

Led strategies to modernise and expedite design execution, working closely with off- shore UI development team, on initiatives around coding standards, in-browser designing, rapid prototyping

Conceived, championed and delivered the ‘JPDNA’ design system, powering prestigious news brands such as including The Scotsman, The Yorkshire Post and Sheffield Star

Delivered award-winning inews.co.uk in 6 weeks, utilising the JPDNA in its infancy and proving untold value to the business..

// The Sun

With remits targeting visitor retention, brand continuity and refining user experience, I completed a run of incremental revisions to The Sun website, increasing traffic and search optimisation. Redesigning article pages, social media touch points, the community platform and registration journeys, the site underwent a much-needed makeover with IA/UX best practice at the forefront of the changes.

Working as part of an agile team, revamping article pages, the masthead, search, community and commenting areas were always accompanied by detailed annotations and HTML/CSS when required.

// The News Of The World

As lead designer for the News International’s first paywall news website, I provided blue-sky concepts for key editorial stakeholders and pixel-perfect guides for developers.

Designing dynamic and scalable templates for homepages, breaking news, football and video sections. I had a pivotal role between the editorial team and developers, devising engaging layouts and prototyping HTML/CSS modules for some parts of the site to better develop the UI.

I also created many of the site-wide 'furniture' graphics, in line with the style guides of the News Of The World and it’s many subsidiary brands and sponsors.

In 2008 I made a bold and necessary career decision to transition from producing physical products to digital products.

Having spent many years exploring and experimenting with the relatively new platform the web offered, I repurposed my product design and marketing experience gained with Reader's Digest the web design and development.

Designing and building Wordpress websites for SMEs and start-ups, I also offered marketing consultancy/advice and photographic services.

A pivotal role within a small team of (physical) music product developers, modernising operations while crafting the perfect 'listening experience' for our customers.

Tackling every stage of product development from concept research, licensing, and contract execution to the creative aspects of music sequencing, art direction and liner note commissioning, we collectively produced over 250 music compilations a year.

During my time I lead several process efficiency reviews resulting in regular upgrades to the CMS, powering our output and the millions of records of metadata associated with this work.

I transitioned the team from an analog workflow to a digital process, halving the time taken to processing audio, and also conceived and developed a music contract management system to keep track of the hundreds of 'live' licenses agreements in progress.

A great blend of theoretical and practical creative arts modules that have informed my work in many ways over the years.

From music production to video editing, composition and narrative construction, semiotic studies and improvisation, in hindsight, this education continues to provide a unique inspiration to my creative process.