Certn
As Director of Design at Certn, I lead the charge in shaping how people experience our products, services, and brand—inside and out. Certn is a global background screening company operating at scale, and my role sits at the intersection of product, marketing, and people. I’m responsible for ensuring design is not just an afterthought, but a strategic driver of business and user success.
✦ Leading Design Across the Business
I oversee a tight-knit team of five designers distributed across multiple time zones, covering product design, marketing design, and brand. When I joined, I inherited an existing team and immediately set about laying the groundwork for a culture of collaboration, clarity, and continuous improvement.
Our work touches everything from the core product experience, where we optimise and reimagine flows used by thousands of clients, to the marketing website, where we communicate Certn’s value clearly and confidently to a global audience.
Operating across geographies, I’ve refined our processes to ensure asynchronous collaboration is not only possible, but productive—allowing our distributed team to move quickly and thoughtfully without compromising quality or cohesion.
✦ Strategic Design Leadership
I partner closely with product, engineering, marketing, and leadership teams to embed design thinking into decision-making. This includes:
Driving product strategy through user-centred research, prototyping, and iterative design
Evolving and maintaining our design system, ensuring consistency and scalability across teams
Championing accessibility, performance, and inclusivity as core design principles
Bringing design into leadership conversations, shaping roadmaps and OKRs from a UX perspective
I also help elevate the visibility of design across the organisation—showcasing our work, the problems we’re solving, and the outcomes we’re delivering. This has helped build stronger cross-functional trust and appreciation for design as a business asset.
✦ Coaching and Culture
Beyond the work itself, I spend a lot of time investing in people. I mentor designers across various experience levels, helping them grow their craft, confidence, and career trajectories. I’ve introduced regular feedback rituals, learning opportunities, and design critiques that empower the team to level up together.
My goal is to create an environment where design can thrive: one that values curiosity, psychological safety, high standards, and a genuine sense of purpose.
