Experience
Product Design – Stedi, 2021-23 #
Stedi is a US-based, globally remote startup building developer tools for the logistics and supply-chain sectors. As part of a small and very flat team at Stedi, I worked across all product functionality, design systems, documentation, and marketing material.
- Highly fluid mix of interface design, customer research, information architecture, copywriting, and some front-end development.
- Brought Stedi’s first true productivity offering — a data mapping tool — to market.
- Developed a federated in-app navigation system to tie together disparate products running in different codebases.
- Expanded the design system and refactored it to improve ease of use and increase accessibility.
Product Strategy Director – Flux, 2020-21 #
Flux builds software to run energy companies – providing everything from call-centre customer triage to complex pricing configuration to consumer-facing web and mobile apps.
- Worked closely with product management, engineering and design leaders across the business to create a cohesive set of priorities for the overall product suite. The result was a broad 2-3 year product strategy that concentrated the whole business on flexibility and configuration to open up addressable market, driving focus on the most critical customer outcome (reducing their cost-to-serve).
- Formed approaches to new and uncharted functionality including big market-fit challenges: modelling complex multi-account customer data; flexibility and segmentation capability of the comms platform; the configurability of the customer experience applications.
Product Design Director – Flux, 2018-2020 #
Over the previous two years, I led product design at Flux – coaching and growing the team, establishing design practice, and improving design involvement in Flux’s product development processes. Particular highlights were increasing the cross-functional integration of UX research and design with the rest of the business, delivering a new energy payment experience, and forming a front-end systems team to improve interface quality and speed-to-market.
Design Architect – Xero, 2016-18 #
Xero is a major SaaS accounting platform founded in New Zealand, operating globally. I led the design systems team at Xero. We built an internal design and front-end toolset that enabled the whole company to deliver good-quality interfaces fast. It’s now relied upon by dozens of designers and hundreds of developers. My time was spent diversely – down in the weeds of tiny interaction design decisions, advocating and encouraging adoption across the business, helping designers solve interface problems effectively, and learning where the system needed to go next. The role also included design direction for work outside or across internal product boundaries. This included navigation and messaging plus a stint managing the US design team from NZ – a good headstart on remote work.
Creative Director – Springload, 2014-16 #
Springload is one of New Zealand’s most respected digital agencies. During my time there we designed and built Kiwibank’s website and banking apps. Also on the client roster were the New Zealand Festival of the Arts, NZ On Screen, NZ on Air, and Radio New Zealand.
As Creative Director, I was responsible for the growth and health of the design team, winning new business, and developing long-term client relationships while still designing a few significant projects! The longevity of many of those relationships allowed me to build a strong understanding of the importance of good strategy, as well as good execution.
Design Director – Springload, 2011-14 #
As Design Director at Springload, I led several significant projects from initial strategy to delivery - taking the reins on research, information architecture, and interaction design, collaborating heavily with lead engineers and clients.
The rest #
Prior experience includes running an independent design consultancy, a stint in advertising, plus graphic and digital design roles. Important projects included full rebuilds of realestate.co.nz, Mitsubishi Motors, and the Blind Foundation’s websites, contributions to the sites of two major banks, my first crack at productivity software (a courier ticketing system), plus a slew of work for smaller brands.