About me
I’m a designer and innovation strategist looking for somewhere to build products that matter.
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A brief history of me
After earning my masters in Design & Innovation from Goldsmith’s and QMUL, I spent the following 4 years building design sprints with brands, consultancies and governments across four continents as partner and design director of Hackmasters.
Along the way I've built, tested and piloted app designs, built a 6 month long speculative forecasting sprint program, and lead teams through dozens of future-facing 5-day hacks.
After leaving Hackmasters, I decided to shift my focus to purpose-driven products where my role as a designer could have a greater impact. To this aim, I worked as a freelance contractor with a range of start-ups and scale-ups. My primary goal was to help these organisations to de–risk and accelerate innovation by validating new opportunities through user research, designing MVPs, and learning from user-testing to iterate them before launching in the market. This included working with MUSO & Disney to design a responsive web app for managing and monitoring online piracy as well as an avatar training mobile app for Sensorium, a leading metaverse entertainment brand. For eighteen months of my time as a freelancer, I worked three days a week as a lean innovation consultant for Studio Zao, an innovation agency that helps corporations to leverage entrepreneurial skills internally.
Since March 2022, I have been working with Syndi Health, a B2B2C digital health service recommendation, outcome monitoring, and payment platform, which partners with health services and insurers to assess and match users to effective and immediate support. As their Senior Product Designer, I was responsible for the translation of commercial, clinical and user-centred opportunities into user research and production-ready designs as well as continually evaluating and iterating them based on user engagement monitoring tools such as HotJar. I was also able to hone my sprint management skills and took charge of scoping and managing tickets in Jira, managing freelance designers and building the company’s design system.
As an end-to-end designer, I start before the brief, identifying the right questions before diving into answers. I believe the what is only as good as the how and the how is only as good as the why. I’m more than a designer, I build processes that deliver solutions.
If you want to find out how we can work together, get in touch or view my CV.
Credits
Spring - Circular Subscription Design & Strategy
Product Lead, March 2023 - Present
Syndi Health - User WebApp & Partner / Organisation Portals
Senior Product Designer, March 2022 - 2023
E-Commerce 360 - Bespoke Packaging Design Platform, Aptar
Lead Product Designer & UX Researcher, 2021
BAM Platform - Digital Reality Competition Series, BAMInnovation Strategy Consultant & UX designer, 2021
Lean Entrepreneurship Programme, Aptar Home & BeautyProgramme Designer and UX Designer, 2021
Senso App - Building, Training & Trading Digital Avatars, SensoriumSenior Product Designer & Product Lead, 2020
Vinco Board Game, VincoLead Designer, 2020
Alzheimers & Dementia Hack, UCLDesign & Innovation Strategy Coach, 2020
Lean Entrepreneurship Online Course, StudioZaoEntrepreneur In Residence & Lead Designer, 2020
Earshot - Proximity based Social Media PlatformFounder & Lead Designer, 2020
Food Hack, Imperial College London x Quadram Institute
Lead Programme Designer & Facilitator, 2020
Amplify Innovation Training Sprint, Sony MusicLead Programme Designer, 2019
FTI Consulting, Convergent InnovationPublishing Designer, 2019
Demand Sensing From Piracy Data Platform, Muso x Disney
Lead Designer, 2019
WRC World Retail Congress Hack, WRC
Programme Director, 2019
FutureConsumerNow, EY
Programme Director, 2018
Future of Government Services, UAE Prime Minister’s Office
Sprint Planner & Facilitator, 2018
Inaugural VentureMasters Sprint
Sprint Planner, 2018
Promarketer, VentureMasters
Lead Designer, 2018
Innovation Mondial, Dubai Customs
Facilitator & Sprint Planner, 2017
Young Planet, Parent’s Sharing Economy Platform
Project Leader, UX/UI Designer & Pilot StrategyDubai 10x Innovation Sprints
Sprint Planner for
Dubai Ambulances
Dubai International Airport
Community Development Authority
Dubai Freezones
Dubai Customs
Team Leader & Concept Designer of
Amina, AirInc & Fundable, 2017Happiness Hack, SDO
Sprint Planner & Concept Designer of Dunia, 2016
Innovating Infrastructure, Tideway, HS2, & Crossrail
Sprint Designer & Facilitator, 2016
Convergence Lab, EY
Programme Planner, App Designer & Facilitator, 2016Cache App, Al Farwaniya
Project Leader & UX/UI Designer, 2016
Drought Resilience Sprint, Unilever & NERC
Sprint Planner & Concept Designer of RainCrowd, 2016Hackergames, EY
Programme Planner & Concept Designer of Billy, 2015
Smarter Homes, Apppli
Programme Planner & Concept Designer of Elsie, 2015
Mobility Ecosystem Sprints, EY
Sprint Planner & Concept Designer of Tada, 2015
Hack Stack, NetEnt
Facilitator, 2015
Drop App, 10 Cases
Co-Project Leader & UX/UI Designer, 2015
Squidger, Cosmetic Accessory
Industrial Designer, 2014Stow, Zero Energy Food Cooler
Product Designer, 2014
Trace, Surgical Instrument Monitor
Concept & Product Designer, 2013
ClockWise, Circadian Rhythm Wearable
Concept & Product Designer, 2013A.R.C, Sailor Survival Suit
Product Designer, 2012
What some nice people have said
“Ross is exceptionally well rounded innovator and designer. Very few people can truly combine all the skills and experiences that Ross brings to the table. As a senior partner in Hackmasters for over 5 years Ross led massive teams across sectors, cultures and even continents to develop new disruptive and inspiring concepts. Taking most projects from highly abstract and un-defined post it notes to practical prototypes in record time. His ability to flex between identifying the strategic idea to leading collaborative teams to execute as well as being a naturally talented designer Ross’s skill set is hard to beat.”
“Ross combines expert design skills with a clinical observance of information to decipher complex drivers of change into coherent models of a designed future which bring clarity and structure to future world models.”
“Ross is an outstanding and innovative designer and product strategist. I have had the pleasure of working with Ross on a number of projects at MUSO and found him to be insightful, forward-thinking and focused on outcomes that have had a positive impact.”
“Ross is a talented combination of problem solving skills and well-honed aesthetic taste. He is eternally kind and in my opinion ego-less, always willing to be of service to the challenge. He’s a deep thinker who consistently delivers nuanced, powerful perspectives that cut right to the heart of a subject.”
“I was really impressed with Ross’s ability to bring the team focused through 1000+ ideas all the while visualising, distilling, encouraging, questioning and bringing the end result to where it needs to be. We’ve been to a few hacks together and I was always inspired by what his teams produced.”
