Your early designers do more than shape your product—they set the foundation for how design drives impact in your company.
You’ve made great hires—well done! Now, as your startup scales, how do you ensure design keeps up? Growing teams, scaling quality, and influencing strategy require a shift to balance immediate execution with long-term impact. With the right support, you can strengthen hiring, improve retention, and amplify design’s role in building a successful product and business.
That’s where I come in.
Hi, I’m Tom—I’ve spent 20 years in product design, in London and New York, with 10 years in leadership roles including the last 5 as Director of Product Design at Monzo. I’ve worked at startups, scaleups and household names, building the expertise needed at growth-stage inflection points while seeing firsthand the risks of not embedding design as a leadership pillar from the start.
Together, we’ll close that gap—helping design become a strategic advantage, not just an execution function.
I blend coaching, strategic guidance, and async support to help your design team perform at their best. As a trusted partner with deep context on your company, I can coach your designers, shape strategic decisions, and help de-risk product choices. This gives you the benefit of senior design leadership, without over-hiring too soon, so you can build a strong design foundation that drives impact now and in the future.
Many startups invest in hiring great designers, but the true challenge is unlocking their full potential once on board. The cost of hiring goes far beyond salary. Employer taxes, benefits, overheads, equity, and recruitment fees mean a 100K base salary can easily turn into a fully-loaded annual cost to the business of 150K–200K.
By working with me, you get the most from your team, ensuring design plays a strategic leadership role early on, without hiring veteran leaders too soon. I take on a limited number of clients at a time to ensure deep focus, partnering with startups where a strong human-centred mission, team, or ambition is at the core of what they do.
I offer three sizes of engagement:
Essential
→ One hour-long session every other week, plus async support
Elevated
→ One hour-long session every week, plus async support
→ Best for design teams of 1, where design is a key product differentiator
Embedded
→ Two hour-long sessions every week, plus async support
→ Best for design teams of 4+ or approaching scale-up stage
While I provide most value as a long-term partner, I understand how funding cycles and runway affect priorities. You can pause or cancel at any time. No pressure.
If you want to build a world-class product design team and culture from day one, I’d love to chat.
We’ll discuss your challenges and, if there’s strong potential, schedule a free 60-minute session to work through a real design, hiring, growth or strategy challenge together, to see whether there's a fit. I look forward to meeting you.