About

Design Director: Jan 2019 – Present

Amsterdam & Eindhoven Area, Netherlands 

Leading a team in areas of digital design, innovation, technology, and artificial intelligence. Additionally, I work across horizontal businesses with global teams creating and innovating on the latest developments to bring new ideas to market.

 

Sr Creative & Team Lead: Jul 2016 – Jan 2019

Amsterdam Area, Netherlands 

As the Sr Creative Lead for the DLS system, (Design Language System) which was released at version 1 in July 2018 under my direction. I switched the team to agile design, installed a review process, wrote & delivered DLS training for all UX Leads, started support sessions for projects, worked with toolkit teams, aligned product development to visual designs, gave creative and visual direction to the projects using the design language, had the responsibility for quality and took the sDLS message to our stakeholders. I also managed outside agencies and coached several designers, all while managing the whole intricate eco system and setting the vision for what sDLS could be.

Lead & Principal of UX: Jan 2013 – Jun 2016

Amsterdam Area, Netherlands

At Backbase I lead and defined the UX for Professional Services.  Growing the creative team in a sustainable way. I helped mature the UX design, way of working and project methodologies. I defined the UX process, defined users, understood journeys, created flows, created visual solutions, created cross platform design, created connected device design, prototyped, coached clients on good design thinking, traveled and took the lead on the impact new technology had for solutions, and how to design for it. I was lead in many Fintech projects. I was also a mentor and managed my team in the ways of UX, and Talent Managed 20+ UX Consultants, 20+ Front End and 10+ Back End Developers.

Senior UX/UI: Jul 2011 – Dec 2012

Amsterdam Area, Netherlands

I designed for Cloud9 IDE’s user experience and brand, helped guide the design and development teams in building features and flows. I was also involved in the business’ future vision and collaborated with the CEO, CTO, Creative Director and Marketing to create roadmaps, and business target areas. It was a flat structure, and I enjoyed driving the design direction as well as how the product would develop.

 

Co-Founder & Creative Operational Director: Nov 2010 – Jul 2011

Glasgow Area, UK

Here I was a Co-Founder responsible for driving the business design as well as all the pitches for VC funding. From a design POV I was responsible for the design, flow, feature implementation and UX/UI of new products. Responsible for translating marketing objectives into creative strategies, designs, and plans. I managed the graphic design, website development, collateral development, copywriting, advertising, strategy and promotions, as well as day to day running of the office, and staff. The company was sold at a profit to an Australian company. 

 

Glasgow Caledonian University

BA (hons) Applied Graphics with Multimedia Technology –

I achieved my degree with distinction Mark: 2:1. Main subjects: design studies project, multimedia development technology with interface design, business studies, graphic design, webpage development, animation, desktop publishing and 3D modelling.

 

City of Glasgow College

HND Digital Art & Design (Diploma)  –

 

Team Culture 

Issued Jan 2018 by: New Heroes – Amsterdam

 

On Strategy : What Managers Can Learn from Great Philosophers (online) 

Issued Jun 2014 by: Ecole Centrale Paris

 

Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies (online)

Issued May 2014 by: University of Maryland

Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence (online)

Issued Jun 2013 by: Case Western Reserve University

Gamification (online)

Issued Sep 2012 by: Penn State University

 

Following is a list of programs that I have a thorough and sound professional knowledge of:
Sketch, Flinto, Craft, Adobe Creative Suite 2020 including, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Sublime Text Editor (CSS, CSS3 & HTML5),  Javascript, Balsamiq, Omni Graffle, Invisionapp, Github, Screenflow, Premier, MS Office Suite, Acrobat, Keynote, Pages, plus a few other niche softwares.

 

Codemotion – Program Committee
2-3rd April 2019

DOMCODE – Meetup
26th June 2018

Codemotion Amsterdam 2017 – Conference
16-17th May 2017

Codemotion Milan 2016 – Conference
25th-26th November 2016

Ladies that UX – Meetup
9th March 2016

Topconf Bucharest 2015 – Conference
29th September 2015

Codemotion Milan 2014 (Youtube Interview)– Conference
29th November 2014

Dutch Mobile Conference
28th June 2014

UX Scotland – Conference
20th June 2014

 

The Hammerman Award (winner)

Prince Phillip Award (runner up)

 

Program Committee: Codemotion Amsterdam

Sep 2018 – Present

I help organise a tech conference every year in Amsterdam. Organising speakers, managing the design track and making sure the conference goes smoothly.

 

Mentor: Startupbootcamp

Sep 2014 – Present

Mentor at Startupbootcamp. I help new startups create great software products and help then through their design challenges as well as helping with people managements skills. I function as a design sounding board and guide, for entrepreneurs.

 

Designlab (trydesignlab.com)

Aug 2015 – Present

One on One design coach for people learning to become designers.

 

May 2017 – Present

Personal drawing blog and creativity space

 

Jun 2017 – Present

All the latest news gathered and published into a newspaper for UX fans

 

Feb 2015 – Present

I keep an online repo of all my open source projects in code.