about fiona

Senior Product Designer with full ownership of design, from early discovery through to work that ships and performs.

I work best when I'm embedded in a product team where things are moving fast and the problems are genuinely hard. I bring structure to complex challenges without adding friction, take full ownership of design from the moment the problem is defined, and keep momentum going all the way through to shipping.

My story

In 2016, after several years as a Business Analyst in the insurance industry, I transitioned into UX design and began working on digital products for high-growth startups. Those early years taught me how to design for scale, work closely with product and engineering teams, and balance user needs with commercial goals.

Fiona in a pink and white striped shirt writing with a red pen at a table, with two blurred people in the foreground.

After working at a venture studio, I caught the entrepreneurial bug and left full-time employment to start my own business. My husband and I launched The Shoot, a marketplace for photographers. We grew the platform to over 250 photographers, but made the difficult decision to close it during the pandemic.

Although short-lived, the experience was pivotal. Building a consumer marketplace from scratch taught me what it really takes to earn user trust, design for a community of real people, and make product decisions under commercial pressure. It also gave me a first-hand understanding of how much the quality of the product experience shapes whether people come back, and how design either builds or erodes a sense of belonging within a community.

After closing the business, I began working independently as a freelance product designer and strategist partnering with teams around the world to define and design marketplaces and B2B platforms. Alongside client work, I also taught UX and landing-page design at Jolt, helping professionals learn to design with confidence.

In 2022, one of my freelance clients asked me to join full-time as Chief of Staff. It was a role that expanded my work far beyond design. Working closely with the CEO and the executive team, I partnered with senior leaders across operations, product, engineering, data, compliance, and customer support. I helped prepare investor materials and our Series A story, gaining a deeper understanding of how leadership teams make strategic, product, and financial decisions.

After the company was acquired, I returned to independent design work with a broader perspective and deeper understanding on how design fits within a business. In particular, I learned how decisions ripple across teams, and how to align product direction with commercial realities.

What I bring to the table

I bring both the strategic and the practical. I work embedded within product teams, taking ownership of the full design process from shaping the problem through to shipping work that performs.

Strategic thinking

I work at the level above the interface, connecting product decisions to business outcomes and making sure the team is solving the right problem before committing to a solution.

Systems thinking

I think about how a product behaves as a whole, how its parts connect, and how to build structures that scale without fragmenting. The result is a product that is easier to extend, easier to maintain, and easier for users to trust.

Collaborative by nature

Design does not happen in isolation. I build close working relationships with product managers and engineers, make sure decisions are understood by everyone who needs to act on them, and create space for the team to push back on my thinking.

Design craft

Strong visual design is not separate from good product thinking, it is part of it. I care about typography, hierarchy, layout, and the details that make an interface feel considered and trustworthy. Good craft builds the kind of user confidence that is hard to measure but easy to feel.

Customer insight

I bring the voice of the customer into the process early and keep it there. I use research and testing not as a final gate but as an ongoing tool for making better decisions and catching problems before they become expensive to fix.

Bias toward action

I move fast, iterate, and believe that a good decision made quickly beats a perfect decision made too late. I am comfortable shipping something that will improve rather than waiting for something that never quite arrives.

How I work

I tend to start by getting under the skin of the problem, talking to the people closest to it, understanding the constraints, and figuring out where the real friction is before jumping to solutions. From there I work closely with founders, PMs, and engineers to build alignment around a clear direction, making sure everyone understands not just what we're building but why it matters.

I'm comfortable with ambiguity and I know when to push back and when to compromise. I'd rather have an honest conversation about trade-offs early than deliver something that doesn't quite fit the reality of the business.

I also use AI tools as a practical part of my process, to accelerate delivery, explore ideas faster, and get work in front of users sooner.

Experience and highlights

With over a decade in design, I’ve worked across industries and growth stages, all the way from startups to scaled platforms.

Career highlights include:

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Designing consumer-facing products across marketplaces, fintech, and booking platforms, with measurable outcomes including a 20% improvement in conversion rate
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Collaborating with teams backed by Y Combinator, Atomico, and Founders Factory
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Teaching design principles through Jolt’s professional education program
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Serving as Chief of Staff at a fintech startup during its Series A raise and acquisition
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Building design systems that give consumer and B2B products a consistent, high-quality visual foundation

Exploring what's next

After a decade of working independently with startups and scale-ups, I'm looking for a senior in-house role where I can go deeper. I want to work on bigger, more complex problems, embedded within a strong product and engineering team, at a company where design genuinely shapes what gets built.

If that sounds like your company, I'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch