UX & Product Design Leader with 10+ years of experience crafting scalable systems that connect business goals with user needs. I help teams design faster, ship smarter, and grow with purpose.
Experience
2024 — Now
Knysna
Currently leading UX & Product Design for a climate resilience platform, empowering farmers and food & beverage enterprises, like PepsiCo, to turn climate threats into business opportunities. Driving their sustainability goals and targets through data-driven adaptation, aligning with client strategy, and delivering user-centred design solutions from concept to high-fidelity delivery.
2023 — 2024
2023 — 2024
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
• Led the UX and design strategy across B2C and B2B experiences for a 2 million+ user learning platform, driving seamless user interactions and product scalability.
• Business outcomes: 200% increase in B2C ARR over 3 years; 400% B2B ARR growth in 1 year, ranking as Germany’s fastest-growing EdTech platform.
• Boosted conversion rates over 50% through A/B testing and data-informed improvements to landing and payment flows.
• Built an enterprise design system with tokenisation (JSON) and documentation, streamlining design-dev collaboration.
• Created a growth path and career matrix for ICs and design managers, mentoring a junior designer to mid-level in just over a year.
• Successfully mentored a junior designer to mid-level in just over a year, providing guidance on design principles, processes, and career development, resulting in significant professional growth.
• Drove business transformation from K–12 B2C to vocational B2B, aligning design with OKRs and contributing to revenue growth.
• Contributed to UX success: 90% in-app satisfaction, 4.4★ App Store (12.5k+ ratings), 4.6★ Trustpilot (400+ reviews).
2022 — 2023
2022 — 2023
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
2018 — 2022
2018 — 2022
London, United Kingdom
• Helped drive Aptem’s market leadership, now used by 60% of UK universities, contributing to 45% ARR growth (from $5.5M to over $8M), $3M in funding, and 10+ industry awards including the Digital Education Awards (2023).
• Led UX and Product Design for transforming a legacy .NET application into a modern PWA using Angular, delivering seamless user experiences and improved performance.
• Achieved WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance by embedding accessibility best practices across all design and development processes.
• Co-designed a cognitive assessment tool, built with psychological experts to identify learners
with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), enabling early intervention and tailored support to improve learning outcomes and retention.
• Established scalable UX processes to ensure design quality and consistency, including coded prototyping, wireframes, and documentation.
• Collaborated on product vision and strategy, leading iterative design processes with senior management and stakeholders, delivering high-quality user experiences that meet business goals and drive growth.
2017 — 2022
2017 — 2022
Knysna, Western Cape, South Africa
• Customer account management, including negotiating contracts and agreements to maximise profit.
• Building and maintaining strong, long-lasting customer relationships.
• Translate concepts into user flows, wireframes, mockups and technical coded (react) prototypes that lead to intuitive user experiences.
• Lead product design teams by providing guidance, oversight, and mentorship to the teams.
• Establish the design strategy and provide visionary leadership of how to integrate leading technology to improve UI/UX of the solutions portfolio.
• Lead a team of User Interface (UI) User Experience (UX) designers, developers and project managers to build quality products on time and on budget.
• Shape the design processes to ensure quality work in a short timeframe
• Coordinate with various teams so that the customer’s expectations are met.
• Ask smart questions, take risks and champion new ideas.
• Identify design problems and devise elegant solutions.
• Always looking to improve inefficient processes.
• Continue their assessment of a client’s needs and business objectives.
• Help develop initiatives to increase customer satisfaction and retention.
• Company-wide strategic planning.
• Upsell services and solutions.
• Manage a client’s projects from beginning to end.
• Work well under pressure and commit to deadlines.
• Liaise between the customer and internal teams.
Education
Damelin