Design leader with 17 years of experience shaping enterprise-grade digital products across financial services and regulated industries.
Currently directing a 70-person UX organisation across London, Vancouver, and New York.
What I bring
I build the team, the process, and the culture. Then the products follow.
Design org building
Hired, grew, and led teams of 70+ people across UX, UI, research, and copywriting. Set up design orgs for startups, scaleups, and enterprises working with MDs, CDOs, and CEOs.
Team retention
Building career frameworks, running critique processes, and creating the conditions where designers do their best work. People I've managed have gone on to lead their own teams.
Design maturity
Raised the NNG design maturity model by 2 points at Global Relay. Strategy, governance, and influence that gives design a seat at the table and credibility to shape product decisions.
Design operations
Tooling, processes, design systems, documentation standards, and cross-site collaboration across London, Vancouver, and New York. The infrastructure that lets a design team scale without losing quality.
User-centred evidence
Research-driven design across every fidelity — from guerrilla tests to structured studies. HSBC Kinetic achieved 4.8/5.0 from 22,000+ app store reviews. Every decision mapped to evidence, not opinion.
Hands-on craft
Still a practitioner at heart. Wireframing, prototyping, interaction design, and visual direction in Figma. I lead by doing, not just reviewing.
Credentials
Patent, publication, and academic foundation.
Experience
17 years scaling design from startup to Tier-1 banking.
Each role sharpened a different edge — building teams, embedding research, influencing strategy, and shipping products in complex, regulated environments.
Directing a 70-person UX organisation across London, Vancouver, and New York. Grew the London studio from 5 to 40, achieving 93% team retention. Drove a UX maturity programme raising the organisation nearly 2 points on the NNG scale.
Led design direction of HSBC Kinetic from concept to market launch across iOS, Android, and Web. Built a multidisciplinary team of 20. Kinetic achieved 4.8/5.0 from 22,000+ reviews and won Best Mobile Initiative for Business at the Banking Tech Awards.
Led experience design for the Eikon trading platform's core applications. Spearheaded responsive design standards using analytics and behavioural data. Delivered the flagship redesign to strong institutional client feedback.
Managed teams and led UX engagements across finance, government, and energy sectors. Scoped, pitched, and won large-scale UX projects for high-profile enterprise clients.
Joined via RedKite acquisition as part of the product leadership team. Led UX design for compliance and case management products, embedding user-centred design principles into the development process.
Conducted user research for consumer electronics, informing product and interaction strategy across European markets.
Beyond work
Creative practice that sharpens the day job.
iOS apps built with AI-assisted development, music released as Dimitris Kontaris, and photography from a travelling visual diary. Making things outside of work keeps my instincts sharp and my perspective fresh.
View creative practiceSectors I've worked across: banking and finance, risk and compliance, health and fitness, education, gaming, energy, pharmaceutical.
How I lead
Five principles that shape how I build teams and ship products.
Structure before scale.
Process, governance, and clarity come first. Adding headcount to an unstructured team multiplies the problem, not the output.
Design embedded, not adjacent.
User-centred design belongs inside the software development lifecycle. The moment design becomes a service function, influence on the product evaporates.
Two paths up.
Craft leadership and people leadership are equal tracks. Designers shouldn't have to stop designing to grow.
Evidence over opinion.
Research, analytics, and governance beat strong feelings. The most senior person in the room is rarely the one with the best data.
Quiet craft.
Restraint, clarity, and work that speaks for itself. The best design organisations don't need to explain themselves loudly.
Other recognition
Beyond the work.
US Patent co-inventor on a gesture-based system for searching electronic records (Global Relay, filed 2022).
ACM publication: 'Feelybean: Communicating Touch at a Distance' (2011), co-author.
Conference speaker on responsive design at Thomson Reuters (post-launch of Eikon Top News redesign).