Professional Experience

Google

2022 —

UX Design Manager

Google Cloud Platform

Design lead for Unified Control Plane (UCP), providing standardized tooling that GCP teams use to efficiently create and maintain reliable GCP products and services.

Microsoft

2022

Principal Design Director

Visual Studio Core

Design director for Microsoft's core tools for developers and data scientists including Visual Studio 2022, Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio for Mac, and Azure Notebooks.

Managing multiple distributed teams of designers and design technologists to create coherent and elegant experiences across the Microsoft developer cloud ecosystem including Azure and GitHub.

2021 — 2022

Principal Design Manager

Developer Division

Formed a team of Subject Matter Experts and Design Technologists to optimise the developer experience for the Visual Studio and Azure product lines across Windows 11, macOS and Electron-based technologies.

Optimised tooling, libraries, documentation and contributed directly to the product code to ensure that products aligned to the original design intent, while adapting gracefully to the personalization and accessiblity needs of our end users.

2018 — 2021

Principal Design Manager

Developer Division

Initiated DesignOps best practices across over 40 designers working in Redmond and remote locations on Visual Studio for Windows, Mac and VSCode developer products.

Created shared tools leveraging Figma, Vue and Python to increase automation and reduce duplication of efforts, allowing designers to focus more on solving customer problems, rather than reinventing interfaces.

2017 — 2018

Senior Design Manager

Azure DevOps

Managed a team of 8 across Raleigh, NC and Redmond, WA; Introduced briefs, process and design systems to a legacy product team, including adoption of Figma and shared team component libraries.

Piloted usage of Figma across Microsoft, including speaking and sharing best practices at internal events, facilitating over 1,000 users within the Visual Studio, Windows, and Azure product teams to move to one centralised design tool.

2016

Senior Designer

Gaming & Entertainment

Lead designer on Skype for Xbox One based on the Universal Windows Platform.

Designed and prototyped detailed proposals for integrated Skype sharing and streaming experiences in a future Xbox OS.

2014 — 15

Senior Design Manager

Partner Experiences

Relocated to the USA as design manager for Skype's experiences within partner applications, notably HoloLens, Windows 10 and Office 365.

Shipped the first release of Skype for HoloLens including unique scenarios for NASA as part of their "Project Sidekick" initiative.

Researched and defined revised presence model for Skype consumer & enterprise applications.

Skype

2010 — 13

Design Lead

Mobile & Platform

Design manager for Skype clients on iPhone, iPad, Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, MeeGo, webOS as well as carrier-specific clients for Verizon and KDDI.

Grew the team from 3 to 12 across London, Palo Alto, Tallinn and Moscow.

Designed and shipped first Skype mobile video clients on Nokia N900 and iPhone 3GS; work featured in Apple’s 2010 iOS 4.0 keynote.

2006 — 2010

Interaction Designer

Consumer Electronics

Interaction designer for original Skype mobile and consumer electronics clients, partnering with Sony, Intel, Panasonic, Samsung, LG and Philips for embedded hardware, TV and cordless phone products

Filed multiple patents for new and novel ways for people to have shared experiences in a living room environment.

Designed first Skype tablet client for Nokia N800 and first integrated Skype experience for 3 Skypephone

3

2001 — 2005

Web Developer

My 3

Designer for customer facing self-care applications (“My 3”) on mobile and web, as well as retail kiosk-based customer acquisition tools.

ARTISTdirect

1999-2001

Webmaster

Artist Presence

Web designer role in Los Angeles, developing official artist and e-commerce sites for Korn, Rage Against The Machine, Backstreet Boys, STEPS, Monty Python, Indigo Girls, Mercury Rev, Long Beach Dub Allstars and Kenny G.

Tamar

1998-1999

Web Designer

Corporate Clients

Web designer for corporate and legal clients, including UK blue-chip firms Endsleigh Insurance and J Sainsbury plc

Wick Hill

1992-1998

Support Technician

In-house

In-house technical support looking after LAN, desktop and printer management for a local software distributor.

Education & Recognition

1990-92

Woking College

Computer Science, Design

2012

Webby Awards

Winner: Social, Tablet and other devices (“Skype for iPad”)

1999

US Citizenship and Immigration Services

O-1 Alien of Extraordinary Ability

2012

Webby Awards

People's Voice Winner (“Skype for iPad”)

1999

Recording Industry Assocation of America

Platinum sales award, (Korn, “Follow The Leader”)

2013

Apple

Most downloaded free iPad app of all time (“Skype for iPad”)

1999

Recording Industry Assocation of America

Best Artist Site, (“Rage Against The Machine”)

2016

NASA

“HoloSkype” used on the ISS as part of Project Sidekick.

2008

GSMA Global Mobile Awards

Best Mobile Handset or Device (“3 Skypephone ”)

2017—18

Out of Office Hours

Selected for mentoring designers new to the tech industry.