Design Leadership Memos

I first did at-scale design systems work a decade ago whilst leading a team of 200 designers in an organisation of 20000 people1 and quickly came to see the output of this work as both: 1. Infrastructure to create scalable high-quality user experiences, and  2. The recasting of the role

Throughout the 20 odd years that I’ve been designing products and designing organisations, I’ve repeatedly heard designers lamenting their lack of access to long-term strategy-making and vision-setting circles. I feel like this was even a core part of the whole ‘seat at the table’ meme which spent a

Design leadership is a heady blend of Culture, Strategy, Organisational Design, Talent Management and Collaboration. So just the easy stuff.

AKA Career Ladder, Career Progression Framework, etc.

As I sat down to start work on what would become this newsletter in the summer of 2024, I was in reflective mood having reached a milestone in my Design Leadership career. I was now a decade into my work at the helm of design organisations, and a mind-boggling 22