People management & leadership

Company: Various

Work stream: Management & leadership

Skills: People management, coaching, communication, leadership vision & decision making

Introduction

As a design leader, I have built and led teams of varying scale across my career, driving both delivery excellence and cultural growth.

The examples below highlight my leadership approach and experience in practice.

People management

I have led teams across both the non-profit and financial sectors, most notably at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and NatWest. At the Wildlife Trust, I managed three permanent staff and up to 15 volunteers. At NatWest, I head up the Product Design Pillar within the Human-Centred Design (HCD) team, leading a multi-level team of seven designers.

I am accountable for both the quality of design delivery and the behaviours that shape a high-performing team culture. My leadership style is empathetic and coaching-led, building trust, encouraging progression, and fostering accountability. I embed design thinking throughout the project lifecycle, ensuring teams clearly articulate the rationale behind their decisions and confidently engage stakeholders. I approach feedback and conflict resolution with clarity, empathy, and strong expectation-setting.

Leadership

As a design leader, I champion cross-functional collaboration and strong stakeholder partnerships to deliver cohesive, outcome-focused solutions. I work across disciplines and seniority levels to elevate the role of design and research, driving greater design maturity within the organisation.

Within Commercial Lending at NatWest, I have helped shift design from tactical execution to strategic influence, embedding the “three amigos” model of Product, Technology, and Design to strengthen decision-making and long-term impact.