Hire the seat.Get the hands.
Head of Design or Chief Product Officer. Either way you get someone who sets direction, builds the team, and can still open the file.
Name the seat.See the evidence.
Ten roles across design, product, research, systems, AI and customer experience. Pick the one you’re filling. Every line opens the work that backs it up.
Build or rebuild the design and research function.
Done it from zero to 48 at PDF Solutions: hiring, structure, rituals and a bench of leaders.
PDF SolutionsStand up the design system, and the spec discipline that keeps it alive.
A system is a product. It gets owners, a roadmap and an engineering contract.
Design systemsRaise the craft bar by doing, not only reviewing.
I still open the file. Teams move faster when the person setting the bar can also clear it.
HealthcareMake design legible to engineering, product and the board.
Decisions are written down, states are drawn, trade-offs are explicit.
IdentityOwn the research practice.
Continuous discovery beside engineering, so evidence arrives when decisions are made, not a quarter later.
UX methodHire, level and grow designers.
Clear ladders, honest reviews and a hiring loop that tests judgment. People stay where they can see the next rung.
LeadershipPut design in the room where strategy is set.
Design argues from evidence and outcomes, not taste. That is how it earns a permanent seat.
LeadershipOne experience across every product and channel.
My last title was Total Experience: product, service, documentation and support designed as one system.
PDF SolutionsBuild the whole organisation: design, research, content, systems.
Four crafts, one operating model, one hiring bar. Grown from zero to 48 once already.
Team of 48Make quality measurable.
Eight questions every screen must pass, a design system with adoption numbers, and accessibility that is measured, not assumed.
Design systemOwn product direction from discovery to delivery.
Research, strategy, roadmap, spec and ship, as one continuous line with one accountable owner.
ProductTurn regulated, high-stakes domains into shippable roadmaps.
Healthcare, semiconductor, finance: roadmaps that survive clinical, risk and compliance review.
FinanceRun product, design and engineering as one system.
Computer engineering degree, twenty-three years beside engineers. I write specs teams can build from.
Dev toolsBring AI into the product where it earns trust.
Governed AI is my current work: evidence trails, human sign-off and audit designed in from the first flow.
AI productsPick the metrics, and the ones we refuse to chase.
The basket, not the click. The decision, not the dashboard view.
ConsumerBuild the platform, not only the product.
Marketplaces, identity and design systems: the shared layers that make the tenth product cheaper than the first.
MarketplaceRun the roadmap as outcomes.
Now, next, later. Every card names the number it is meant to move.
RoadmapSay no, with a reason.
Impact against effort, in the open. The loudest request is rarely the most valuable one.
PrioritisationShip with engineering, not at them.
One-page PRDs, every state drawn, acceptance criteria written before the sprint starts.
Dev toolsOwn the numbers after launch.
A north star, three drivers, and a monthly review that changes what we build next.
MetricsTake the hardest flow and make it obvious.
Order review, claim status, surgical sign-off. The scariest screen gets the most craft.
FinanceDesign desktop, mobile and the system behind both.
17 cases here, every one with desktop and mobile screens built on shared tokens.
All workPrototype as the reference.
Engineering builds from a working prototype and a spec. Divergence without a spec is a defect.
HealthcareWrite the final strings.
Copy is interface. I ship the real words, in plain language, never lorem ipsum.
BankingFind where the anxiety actually is.
Journey maps drawn from what people did and said, not from a workshop wall.
Journey mapResearch beside engineering, every sprint.
Small, continuous rounds. Evidence arrives when the decision is being made.
MethodDo field work in high-stakes rooms.
Hospitals and fabs, where the user is an expert under pressure and a survey tells you nothing.
SemiconductorTurn findings into decisions, not decks.
Every study ends in a changed roadmap card, a changed screen, or a written reason why not.
ProductTwo systems shipped from nothing.
The first company-wide system at PDF Solutions, and the governed component grammar behind Barnabus.
Design systemsTokens first, components second.
Colour, type, space, radius and density decided once and named. This site runs on seven colours and five type roles.
Live systemA contract with engineering.
Components ship with states, accessibility rules and acceptance criteria. Design and code version together.
IdentityAdoption is the metric.
A system nobody uses is a style guide. Coverage and time-to-first-screen get reviewed like product numbers.
AdoptionAn AI answer is a draft until a human signs it.
The sign-off is the product. Approve, reject with a reason, escalate, and all of it audited.
AI productsDesign evidence, confidence and refusal.
Answers lead with sources, say how sure they are in words, and decline when the evidence is missing.
Governed answersGovernance built in, not bolted on.
Roles, scopes and audit trails designed as first-class product, for regulated customers.
IdentityTeach people to use AI without depending on it.
An AI literacy curriculum for ages five to fifteen, and the same principle for adult products.
EducationDesign the bad day first.
Failed transfers, cancelled flights, declined claims. Trust is built on the screens nobody demos.
FinanceEvery dead end gets a door.
Each state says what happened, what happens next, and what the customer can do now.
BankingTreat the claim as the product.
The moment a promise is kept or broken gets the whole design budget.
Insurance conceptBe useful in ninety seconds.
When something breaks, the best experience has already done the work before the customer asks.
Travel conceptA product and design audit in two weeks.
Eight questions per screen, your roadmap against the matrix, and a written list of what to cut.
Review methodStand up your design system.
Tokens, the first ten components and the contract with engineering, then hand it to your team.
Design systemCoach your first design leader.
Hiring loop, ladders, rituals and the first ninety days, from someone who has built the function before.
First 90 daysBe the second opinion before a big bet.
A fresh read on the strategy, the PRD or the prototype, in writing, within the week.
ProductFrom zero to.
people. The first design and research function at PDF Solutions, hired, structured and led over four years.
Hire the first five for range.
Generalists who can research, design and prototype, and who raise the bar for everyone hired after them.
Ship the system early.
A design system in the first year, owned like a product, so scale does not dilute craft.
Put research beside engineering.
Evidence arrives when decisions are made, not a quarter later in a slide deck.
Grow leaders, not headcount.
Every lead owns an outcome and a succession plan. The team should survive my holiday and my exit.
What you’d see,and when.
Listen and map.
- Meet every product, design and engineering lead, and ten customers.
- Audit the product end to end and read the last ten shipped specs.
- Map where decisions actually get made, and where they stall.
- Agree with the CEO what “better” means, in numbers.
Fix one hinge.
- Pick the one flow the business turns on and ship a visible improvement.
- Set the review ritual, the spec template and the definition of done.
- Start the design system where it will pay back first.
- Make the first two hires, or the first two hard calls.
Set the system.
- Org design, hiring plan and a bench of leads with clear ownership.
- A product and design roadmap the board can read on one page.
- Research cadence running beside engineering, not ahead of it.
- Metrics agreed, instrumented and reviewed monthly.
How I decide.
Reduce until it breaks. Then add one thing back.
Every element is a claim on someone’s attention. Most don’t survive the audit.
One shell, many people.
The patient and the surgeon use the same product. They should never feel like they do.
The prototype is the reference.
Changes ship from a spec with every state drawn, not from a sentence in an email. Divergence without a spec is a defect.
Copy is interface.
If the words are vague, the pixels can’t save it. I write the final string, never lorem ipsum.
If it can’t be built, it isn’t designed.
Two decades beside engineers, and some of them as one. I hand over decisions, not pictures.