About me
I’m a designer, product leader and builder, currently Head of Design at London AI startup Dex. I’m also one half of Design and AI podcast Mostly Working and am building ooda.run in spare hours.
In 2019 I founded Progression, the worlds first career pathway platform. We built a great team, raised over $6m from cool investors and ultimately got acquired in 2024.
Before all that I led consumer design at now foodicorn Deliveroo (LON:ROO) for a bit, powered £1.8m+ of donations for 300k+ NHS staff meals during covid, helped to build a bank for children that made ahem, headlines, published 6 issues and 15,000 copies of a sweary magazine for creative graduates that my dad disapproved of and organised a 30 day creative festival on a dime in the middle of Shoreditch. I also interviewed Goldie and watched him chainsaw a tree, which was nice.
I can mainly be found online on X/Twitter and LinkedIn and adding occasional longer updates on this site (see below).
Payin' the bills
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Dex (2026–now)Leading design at the AI talent agent for engineers -
Ooda (2026–now)Building secure collaborative hosting for teams -
Mostly Working (2025–now)One half of an AI design podcast (formerly Near Future) -
Toy Studio (2024–2026)Noodling with wild abandon -
Progression (2018–2024)Founded the world's first career pathway platform -
Deliveroo (2015–2018)Led consumer design at the now foodicorn -
Osper (2012–2015)Helped build a bank for children
(and some other jobs before that)
Selected personal projects
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Look Normal (2026)Claude Code in disguise -
designtools.fyi (2026)Explore and compare emergent design tools -
Buzz Cut Coffee (2025)A half caff coffee brand -
Hack Weeks (2025)Supporting the human side of AI adoption -
Found Up North (2025)Community for northern founders -
Bub (2024)A birthday reminder bot that lives in Whatsapp
Recent writing, speaking, etc.
2026
- A mile wide (Aug)Two years after Toy was born, it's time to consolidate
- Tools for Others (Jul)We can now build tools. But what happens after we've got all the shaders we need?
- I love AI, but it still can't design for shit (Apr)Without a critical human eye, AI produces slop. The quality bar is yours to maintain.
- Strategy & Tragedy podcast with Steph Melodia (Mar)From Deliveroo to deliverance – entrepreneurship lessons on the Strategy & Tragedy podcast
- Life after Figma is coming (and it will be glorious) (Feb)As code becomes source of truth, design tools become interfaces on code, not the other way round.
2025
- Browser wars (Oct)Notes on chatGPT Atlas one day in
- Writing Blog Posts with Claude Code on iOS (Oct)Meta-blogging: Using Claude Code on my iPhone to write about using Claude Code on my iPhone
- Redrawing the Map: How AI Is Splitting the Future of Product Design (Sept)Why designers may face a choice between technical mastery and creative vision
- Designing closer to the edge (May)Will the process of designing in product teams finally get its upgrade?
- Lean In (May)A reflection on the importance of engaging with AI
- A(I) Hack Week (May)Just 6 guys and we're vibin' a good time
Show 46 older postsHide older posts
2025
2021
- Wait for it (Mar)It's amazing how fast things can happen when you've put in the time
- Distraction and Flow State (Feb)Perhaps we can't blame our phones...
- What did I work on last month? (Feb)And the value of building for fun
- Progression update: early vs late (Feb)A quick one about the A12
- Radio on the internet (Jan)On Spotify and the future of podcasting
- A birthday reminder (Jan)And the one job in my life that Facebook was actually good for
- Love it or hate it? (Jan)On Marmite and first time user experiences.
- Introducing the 500 word founder: Concise regular ramblings of an early stage tech CEO (Jan)
2019
- Growing at work – the importance of progression (Oct)A conference talk at Jam London
- Climbing your mountain (Sept)Talking about my personal journey at Jam Barcelona
- The power of naïve optimism (Sept)When is it OK to believe that everything will be OK?
- Am I a Junior Content Designer? (Aug)On writing becoming my highest leverage skill
- Lost, but making good time (Aug)Switching to sales as a non sales-person
- I have a co-founder! (Jul)It's taken a long time but is totally worth the wait
- Holding My Breath (Mar)The Alpha begins. What the hell happened for the last six months?
- Designing your Design Career (on Youtube) (Jan)A talk at Design Club in London
2018
- Startup Van Interview (on Youtube) (Dec)I was interviewed about bootstrapping and progression
- Progression update: From pilot to alpha (on the Progression blog) (Dec)Moving from Pilot to Alpha, and why
- Week 17: An Indian Summer (Oct)It's been a wild couple of months. Still haven't launched.
- Week 9: Revenue! (Aug)First paying customers! It's alive...
- On Focus (Jul)I’m struggling to stick to a plan…
- Week 5: Bad Goals (Jul)Becoming comfortable with doing lots of things I don't know how do
- Week 3-4: Progression (Jun)
- Week 2: Lifestyle business (Jun)
- Week 1: Doubling down on risk (Jun)
- Building conviction– how one false assumption changed my founder journey (May)My first 100 days as a (kind of) startup founder
2017
- ShellsuitZombie, this is the end. You’re all legends. (Dec)A letter to everyone that ever helped with our little creative graduate magazine
- Go out and empathise! (Nov)How we’re using Experience Principles to keep each other honest at Deliveroo.
- The Deliveroo Design process (on Youtube) (Sept)A talk at Ironhack in Madrid
- Deliveroo x Framer–One Month In (Mar)An honest look at how our design team is incorporating Framer into our workflow.
2016
2015
2013
2011
- Placement Man (Aug)He does the placements so you don't have to
- Skyping Vince Frost (Aug)An interview with British ex-pat design legend Vince Frost
- The great ape Dave Brown (Bollo) (Jun)An interview with Dave Brown, AKA The Mighty Boosh's Ape 'Bollo'
- Pool with Creative Review (Mar)The team behind one of the most successful non-celebrity twitter accounts in the UK