My family is half British, half Italian, so right from a young age, two things were important to me: good food, and a love of languages and cultures. So, it’s not surprising that I went on to study German, Spanish, and Arabic at university in chilly (but beautiful) Durham, UK.
During my studies, I had the chance to move to Berlin and intern at language-learning start-up Babbel as a content design intern, although back then, content design hasn’t really been coined as a term yet. Here, I saw that I could combine my love of languages with the potential of tech to transform the way people access learning, and friends, I was hooked.
At Babbel, I saw that the PMs were the ones making the decisions about the learning experience, so being stubborn and opinionated, I transitioned into product. During my time at Babbel, we had grown from 50 to 750 people.
I moved onto NeuroNation, a small but mighty cognitive health start-up, where I applied my knowledge of learning to a brain training and meditation. Here, thanks to the founders, I gained knowledge about UX and behavioural economics, and began to draw inspiration from theory for new product features to improve product metrics.
In 2019, my partner and I left Berlin for London, and I joined what3words as a PM, working on voice-only integrations and developing a culture of product experimentation. Languages came in handy here too, as what3words was available in over 40 languages at the time, and I worked on developing differentiated branding and product experiences for different countries based on testing and experimentation.
While at what3words and during the COVID pandemic, I began consulting for a couple of early-stage start-ups, advising them on Product and UX strategy, developing GTM strategy, or for some, doing hands on content design. In 2021, I went consultant full time, working with over 50 clients across 17 countries. I continue to consult under my company “Tech Outcasts”, but have since joined Klarna (initially one of my clients) full time as a UX lead.
So, as a product and UX person, I’m particularly interested in taking a behaviour-led and data-driven approach to incrementally improving products, localising product and product marketing strategy to ensure success in other cultures, and sharing knowledge freely and openly to build strong product culture wherever I work (and help folk discover their own interest in Product and UX).
Outside of work, you'll find me writing streams of consciousness on Medium, re-listening to Serial for the 20th time, mentoring career-changers and recent grads interested in a career in UX and product, learning arrangements of songs from my nostalgic favourite video games on the piano, or figuring out how to use my partner's soda stream machine to make black garlic smoke-infused mozzarella balloons. (We're onto our 3rd soda stream now, awkward.)