About me

The long story

My background

I’ve always had a creative technology background, studying games design and interactive media gave me the confidence to make use of technology to solve problems. I went on to study graphic design which gave me a deeper understanding of design theory and history, followed by a masters in communication design which taught me the value of research and the impact design and technology could have on the world around us.

Front-end development at FutureGov

I've always been able to turn my hand to whatever technology was appropriate for achieving an outcome, and with 1 week of intensive study I landed a job as a frontend developer at FutureGov (now TPXImpact) delivering Ruby-on-Rails projects.

What mattered to me about the job was being a part of an exiting team, delivering 21st century public services for local government. I saw FutureGov grow from a startup to an established company which now employs 350+ people.

Rapid prototyping with Rewired State

As part of Rewired State worked with clients including The Cabinet Office, IBM, Wired, Conde Nast, Goodyear, Wimbledon and at the Emergency Medicine Conference to build rapid prototypes and demonstrate the use of tech for good.

Developing user centred design expertise at the Government Digital Service

I joined GDS to focus more on design, where I've had the opportunity to develop skills in interaction design, service design, user research, performance analysis, and product and delivery management.

I've also been involved in large scale government projects including the Digital Marketplace, GOV.UK and GOV.UK Verify working with stakeholders across the public and private sectors.

Throughout my time at GDS I've represented design on over 40 cross-government panels assessing government services against the service standards. This has given me broad understanding of the challenges of delivering services in different contexts across the public sector as well as the confidence to support teams to deliver the best public services.

In my current role I’ve worked with and hosted governments from around the world. This has given me a chance to understand the ways different cultures work. I've develop skills for supporting and coaching teams in other organisations while being flexible to their needs without being dogmatic about the UK’s approach. It has also given me the opportunity to represent the UK and the importance of user centred design at multilateral events and with senior stakeholders up to ministerial levels.

Volunteering at Mosaik

I started volunteering for Mosaik Education, a charity that aims to use technology to support and open up access for refugees to reach higher education. During this time I've supported the development of brand materials, a website and worked with the team to prototype, test and deliver programmes that can be scaled to support more refugees.

Putting my knowledge to the test with Love Circular

I joined Love circular as a product design instructor because I believed in their mission to fixing the talent pipeline in tech, making education easily accessible and inclusive to all. I quickly learned that it’s one thing practicing design and another teaching it, this work has challenged me develop my approach to design training and I've since supported over 60 students through the 3 month bootcamp.