My career started after graduating with a first-class Industrial Design & Technology degree at Loughborough University. Although physical product design turned out to be alien to me, this path led me to landing an internship at Bosch Power Tools' UX lab in Stuttgart, Germany.

Moving to Germany for the year was one of the most impactful and important choices I made as a young designer. I gained experience facilitating design sprints, generating product ideas, prototyping, and researching with users - directly contributing to the release of the Antino Line Laser and the award-winning YOUseries product range. Bosch extended my initial 6-month internship to a year – something they had not done before – to keep me as part of the team. I still struggled picking up the language, though.

In the summer of 2018, I moved to Winchester to take part in the IBM Extreme Blue programme - a fancy leadership program for future technical and business leaders. There, I led a small multidisciplinary team of four to co-design and develop a digital service for the NHS. By co-designing directly with children on a dialysis ward, I had my first glimpse at the impact design could have on people's lives.

After graduating in 2019, I landed an internship at Wilson Fletcher, a small independent design agency, which quickly turned into a full-time position. During this time, I participated in the annual IxDA Student Design Charette in Milan. This week-long design challenge, set by the Amazon design team, pitted me against other recent graduates from around the world to create a voice-based experience for "vulnerable" users. After a few sleepless nights (and a lot of wine), our team won the competition.

Fast-forward to today, and my role at Wilson Fletcher (now rebranded as Futurestate Design Co) has given me the opportunity to work on a series of ambitious innovation programmes with some of the world's biggest companies. I have supported teams to rethink existing services, generate new ideas, map ecosystems and blueprints, and prototype digital experiences.

More recently, I have been working alongside Dr. Stuart Cockbill to design and deliver a Service Design module for Loughborough University's MA in User Experience and Service Design programme, which embeds lateral thinking and future-focused frameworks into the students' curriculum.