I am currently Global Head of UX at Travelport. Travelport is a GDS (Global Distribution System) - see www.travelport.com. I have over 20 years of experience in design leadership, people management, UX research, product design and change management. I have worked at director-level for more than a decade. I have a track record of success in making teams and organisations more customer-centric and outcome orientated. I'm interested in mentoring (and being mentored, if the right person came along :) to give designers, especially those at a senior level, a helping hand in their career growth in order to become design leaders. Some of the changes in career direction that have defined my career over 25 years in UX are listed below. - Studying science before branching into a new field of technology (GIS, Geographical Information Systems) gave me a grounding in science, maths, and stats while allowing me to blend interests in design (cartography) with technology (digitizing analog data, spatial databases). - Teaching myself how to build websites from scratch at college in the late ‘90s gave me a deep understanding of web technology in its infancy and inspired me to get better at it. It led me to my first job as a usability engineer. - Developing the skills needed to collaborate effectively in the early ‘00s. Working closely with engineers building software products taught me early in my career that design in tech companies is a team sport. - Running my own business for a decade taught me that trust is the key to getting the most out of people. It also gave me a great appreciation of business functions outside design like sales and customer support. - Leaning into design and agile at scale early in its development (2008-2014) gave me an deep understanding of how design has to work alongside product and technology. I was inspired by people like Desirée Sy, Jeff Patton, Jeff Gothelf and, more recently, Teresa Torres to combine methods from UX and agile to get teams closer to customers and their problems.

My Mentoring Topics

• Change management
• Workshop facilitation
• People management
• Design leadership
• Design systems
• Design process integration
• Design - interaction, information, product
• Product and design strategy
• Research - qualitative and quantitative
• Lean UX and design thinking