Work

Leading design, research and the capabilities behind them.

Selected experience developing teams, maturing design systems and building research practice across complex organisations.

01

REA Group

REA tenure: May 2019–June 2023
Head of Design Capability: June 2022–June 2023

Design Capability at Scale

Mandate and challenge

Develop design capability supporting twelve app and web experiences. The work connected research, content design, design systems and operations across product teams.

My contribution

Across successive research, product design and operations roles, I led the capability connecting these disciplines. As Head of Design Capability from June 2022, my remit included design systems, research, content design and operations.

Construct Kit was a team effort spanning design and engineering. REA's published account describes its measurement through engagement, efficiency, adoption and speed, alongside the governance and collaboration needed to support reuse.

Team outcomes

  • REA's Construct Kit team publicly reported 300,000 hours saved in January 2023, describing a four-year journey. This is a programme-level estimate spanning multiple roles and contributors.
  • System-level changes to typography, colour, and styles enabled a full visual identity uplift of realestate.com.au without requiring teams to rebuild from scratch
  • Contributed to consumer experience redesign and a more consistent product and design practice
  • Research established as a partnership model across ten lines of business
  • Supported a design community spanning product design, research, content and operations

Related REA team publications

Company accounts by Chris Stonestreet and Chan Armstrong.

The value of REA's design system Building DesignOps at REA Group
02

Bupa Australia

Bupa tenure: April 2024–present
Head of Design Capabilities: December 2025–present

Building design and research capability across health

Mandate and challenge

Lead design capability across craft, design systems and operations, working with Principals across experience design, content, research and mobile. Earlier research leadership spanned digital experiences across health insurance, health services, healthcare and innovation portfolios.

My contribution

I joined as Senior Research Manager in April 2024, became Head of Research & Insights in July 2024, and Head of Design Capabilities in December 2025. I strengthened research and insights capability through team coaching, capability frameworks and new operating models.

Working with Principals, I align craft standards, coaching and capability development across design, research and content. I also lead strategic product envisioning, connecting customer insights with experience concepts and product direction.

My current work includes advancing AI-enabled design practice with Figma Make, VS Code and GitHub Copilot for prototyping and exploration.

Selected achievements

  • Built Bupa's first centralised ResearchOps capability, standardising governance, tooling and research ethics across products and services
  • Delivered an enterprise Insights Ecosystem and Dovetail repository supporting 2,000+ monthly insight searches, making customer evidence accessible and reusable across teams
  • Established SUPR-Q benchmarking across key customer journeys to measure digital experience performance
  • Partnered with stakeholders and digital teams to embed customer insights into the Savannah 27 transformation strategy
  • Saved $350K in tooling funding through tooling transformation, aligning investment with design and research needs
  • Strengthened multidisciplinary craft development through shared standards, coaching and capability development with Principals
03

Australia Post

UX Design Manager: January 2015–June 2017
UX Research Manager: June 2017–May 2019

Founding Research Capability

Mandate and challenge

Develop dedicated UX research capability and the operations needed to support discovery across digital products and services.

My contribution

Progressing from UX Design Manager to UX Research Manager, I built a research team of up to 13 people and developed ResearchOps. The work combined team development with the infrastructure to support research delivery.

Team capability

  • A UX research team of up to 13 people
  • Established ResearchOps infrastructure to enable effective discovery across critical products and initiatives
  • Shifted product culture toward evidence-based decisioning — better problem definition upstream, better validation downstream
  • Led accessibility initiatives across Australia Post digital channels

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