Thunk Ltd.

Working with businesses and organisations across industries. Providing digital product design & research, leadership, strategy, mentoring, hiring design teams, increasing internal design capabilities and design sprint facilitation.
Clients include: Twitter, Reed, NHS, Fine + Rare, Sensat, Babylon Health, Premier Farnell, Forward Partners, Virti Health, FitXR and some other cool start-ups you've not heard of (yet).

Founder & Design Partner

Google

I had three projects at Google I/O in 2017, two of them as a part of Android 8.0 “Oreo” launching in fall 2017.  As a part of the Android design team in London I led various system UI efforts, including the design for data access and management on Android Oreo Go targeting the "Next Billion Users".

In my time at Google I also worked on Enterprise (Google Apps), Ads (Google AdSense), Commerce (Google Offers), Maps (Google Maps for Mobile), Social (Google+ Local), Emerging Markets, Privacy and Search Ad Formats. I have facilitated many workshops and design sprints across the world, whilst working closely with UX researchers, Product Management and Engineering teams to design and deliver world class products and features.

Senior User Experience Designer / UX Lead

Skype

I worked on a couple of projects at Skype focusing on e-commerce and payment interfaces on both the Skype website and within the Skype client for Microsoft Windows.  I produced various ideas in the form of sketches, wireframes and high fidelity visual designs to simplify the purchase of hardware and Skype credit.  During my time here I also began designing some parts of the first Skype applications for mobile devices.

Interaction Designer

BBC Radio & Music Interactive

During my short time at the BBC I worked on a number of projects for Radio 1, 2 and Five Live.  I lead the interaction and visual design of the Five Live website during the 2006 World Cup campaign.  I ran a number of user studies on features and products for Radio 2, suggested and implemented improvements.  As well as supporting, I constantly pushed the boundaries of BBC processes and design standards to deliver innovative solutions.

Interactive Designer

Yahoo! Europe

As a part of the Ad Technology team I took responsibility for the user experience of rich-media advertising, both on UK, European homepages and throughout the Yahoo websites. This included advising on and upholding usability requirements with clients and the implementation of campaigns using various technologies. I delivered creative solutions, advice and consultancy to both internal and external clients, producing concept designs and prototypes for potential campaigns.

Designer & Front End Developer (Ad Tech)

DMG Radio

During my time in Australia I led the digital media for Nova 96.9fm in Sydney.  Again introducing User-centered Design practices to redesign the site for both user and business needs, also handling most of the technical implementation.  Essentially an extension to the work I'd done at Virgin in the UK.

Design Lead & Product Manager

Virgin Radio International Limited

Led the major re-design of the company's website, introducing user research and testing sessions to create a design that answered user and business needs, standing for almost 4 years.   Worked with external advertisers to create ground breaking cross-media campaigns.

Digital Media Design Lead

Ginger Media Group

I had far too much fun working for Chris Evan's Ginger Media Group on broadcast media websites, redesigning Virgin Radio's site entirely whilst trying to hang around the TFI Friday bar celeb' spotting as much as possible.

Oldroyd Publishing Group Ltd

A graphic design education, taught by old masters. :)

Print and Web Designer

A seasoned digital technology leader, designer, and strategist. I’m an expert in UX design, product & service design and user research.

Blending creative innovation with the power of insight to exceed results is what I do best.

Described as a product design strategy “game-changer”, “visionary”, “ideas guy” and “bloody nice chap”, I've reached 100s of millions of people with my work, worldwide. At Google I led design for and released 3 ground breaking products and features at Google I/O. During my decade at Google I worked on Google Maps, Search, Android and more. Other tech and media brands I've worked with include Skype, BBC, NHS, Yahoo, Virgin, Reed and some fantastic start-ups you haven’t heard of (yet).

I work alongside a range of roles from developers, product managers to managing directors and CEOs. But most importantly, customers and users — the result? Outcomes that increases customer loyalty and meets commercial objectives consistently.

In addition to ‘hands-on design’, workshop and design sprint facilitation I am a consultant to C-Level executives on product design strategies. Working with brands already remarkable in their field who want to push for increased growth. 

★	25 years’ experience in digital technology design, including 10 years at Google

★	I speak designer, customer, developer, executive, sales, user research, team building, product development life cycle, project management and product manager. 

★	It feels like a lifetime ago, but I also hold a 1st Class BA in Interactive Multimedia. 

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► About Thunk –  Thunk transforms businesses with digital product design.

We're a bunch of vastly experienced designers and researchers whose focus is the design-led transformation of products and businesses. We deliver true value every day, and form meaningful partnerships with the businesses and organisations we work with. 

We do two things really well:

★ Design world class digital products and services.
Alongside your teams, we create, improve and reimagine the future, using our design-led processes to exceed desired outcomes.

★ Increase the design maturity of businesses and their teams.
With our decades of experience in improving design maturity within organisations, we take teams and companies to the next level.

We've worked with: 
Twitter | Reed | NHS | Farnell | Sensat | FINE+RARE | + Many More

Book a free consultation here https://calendly.com/thunkltd/intro-to-thunk

Rick Farrell

Journi

Technology Director & Founder

Welldium

Technology Advisor

Technology Lead

DCSL GuideSmiths Spain

Chief Architect

Katoo

Chief Technology Officer

I was hired as the first internal IT guy to take over the Technology side from Rocket Internet that had built the initial MVP for the Katoo App. My main goal was to guarantee that the app could scale to the business objectives and function adequately including all the new functionality that was needed.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
•	Identify and fix several issues creating recurrent outages in the MVP
•	Consolidate and reduce IT spending for the new platform by 60%
•	Build the technological strategy for the company

MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
•	Source, hire and build the internal IT team (Mobile, Back-end and Product)
•	Collaborate with the Founders and HR to define career paths and benefits for the employees

RESPONSIBILITIES:
•	Lead the technology department
•	Decide and support technology choices company wide
•	Negotiate with suppliers for tools and solutions
•	Design architecture and infrastructure for all products

Head of Engineering

During my previous role it was progressively clear that we needed to aggregate all other technologies (like Mobile, Dynamics, Java, etc.) under an unified Center of Excellence and separate the pure architecture work from the project delivery activities. I pushed for a reorganization of the Architecture teams to a new set-up ending up with the creation of 4 CoEs consolidating all architecture work at SGS.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
•	Pushed for pure architecture teams ending with a full reorg supported by the CIO
•	Successfully negotiated with internal sponsors for architecture projects
•	Created the first-ever UX department at SGS for software development
•	Led collaboration activities between the different main delivery centers of SGS which previously worked in isolation
•	Created an architecture roadmap promoting component and APIs reuse reducing development time by up to 30% in several projects
•	Created a Developer Marketplace for easy component reuse based on Azure DevOps (VSTS) artifacts and automation

MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
•	Built 3 teams (total of 15+ people) for the three biggest software projects in SGS
•	Most senior technical person for all developers in Corporate IT (50+ people)
•	Successfully persuaded several SGS affiliates (country offices) to start working with the CoEs and Corporate IT for their local needs
•	Managed all relationship with external partners for IT consulting work (4 companies, 15+ total people)
•	Centralized external providers for software and tools for Corporate IT getting better deals for our purchases

RESPONSIBILITIES:
•	Design the strategy for the overall roadmap for software development within SGS
•	Decide and support technology choices company wide
•	Negotiate with suppliers for tools and solutions
•	Support the application delivery area for architecture-related topics
•	Assess and design applications architecture for lighthouse projects
•	Lead the software architecture team and manage its members

Software Architecture Center of Excellence Manager 

I was assigned the task of create and lead the .Net CoE as way to standardize the development
process (over 90% of SGS’s applications are based on Microsoft technologies) and also to
modernize and professionalize the software practices as most of the stack was obsolete and didn’t
have proper software development methodologies applied.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
• Implemented Azure DevOps (VSTS) globally with 75% of the corporate projects migrated
and 3 main regions using it
• Updated the technology stack to .Net 4.6.2+ and under Microsoft support roadmap
• Led 3 major projects (around 15 developers total) successfully including one major
application rewrite
• Started implementing DevOps practices globally
MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
• Changed SGS recruiting process for developers improving the fit for position/candidate
significantly with only 1 person leaving in 2 years from a team of 50+
• Successfully centralized Architecture decisions from disparate development teams in
Ireland, UK, Canada, USA, Manila and Madrid
RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Define global architecture for .Net projects
• Define DevOps governance for .Net applications
• Lead the software development teams in Madrid and Manila
• Support the application development process for technical troubleshooting

.Net Center of Excellence Manager

Amaris

I was assigned to two accounts during my stay at Amaris. One a Cloud services company in the UK
and the other was SGS, that later asked Amaris to cede me to them.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
• Was made responsible of code quality reviews for all the team (comprising 3 different
consulting companies) when assigned to the UK company
• Opted by SGS and hired from Amaris to fill a key internal role after being assigned to
them for 6 months
MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
• Managed one team composed of 3 different consulting companies for the end-client
• Performed Architect duties for another client, leading one team of 4 developers
RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Design and implementation of new functionality according to the client roadmap
• Unit and Integration testing of new functionality
• Code-review and coaching of other developers
• Interaction with the Front-End team
• Design the architecture for new projects

Consultant

UNONO

Unono is a startup focused on developing products for helping university students. Right now, is
working on solving the problem of junior recruiting by applying technology and an innovative
approach to the problem of finding good enough first-job or internships for university students in
Spain and Portugal.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
• Implemented a DevOps process and Agile practices for software development
• Consolidated a development team on the verge of resigning
• Shifted company-wide management over to a more data-based approach using analytics
in their applications and A/B testing
• Consolidated email and server providers with a 90% savings in monthly costs (Azure and
Office 365)
MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
• Addressed problems of the current developer team, preventing them from leaving en
masse
• Acted as People Manager for all the employees, including non-technical people (12
people total)
• Created an organizational structure, promoting key employees to lead positions
RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Responsible of the technological roadmap of the company
• Design of new application architecture and development framework
• Migrated the main portal to Azure from a legacy framework in AWS
• Design of processes for new products
• Design of internal tools and small applications
• Development of core functionality for the application
• Design and development of back-end components

everis

The Inter-American Development Bank was migrating an older system (OPUS) to a newer one built in .Net (Convergence). My participation in
the project was to start the development of Phase 2 after the first phase of the project ran into
lots of issues on production deployment.
All client interactions were mediated by the Washington DC office that was acting as our internal
client. The project was to be originally handled from Spain with Argentina acting as an off-shore
factory with the Colombia office as support for the Phase 1 part of the application. The initial
reviews from DC for the work done in Argentina changed the focus to Argentina with Spain
remaining as a support office.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
• Created the .Net Development Team for Everis Centers in Argentina from scratch. When I
left the team had over 9 people and was getting development work from other offices.
• Migrated the whole project (4 offices and over 20 developers) to VSTS and Git from TFS
and instituted better source-control practices
• Designed the Phase 2 architecture for the project
MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
• Raised two developers to Lead positions, coaching them to get over their shyness
• Added new recruitment tests to properly assess Junior candidates and got 4 of them
on-boarded
• Managed the relationships between the offices in Colombia, Chile, Spain and USA
smoothing the friction between the teams
RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Technical design of the requirements
• Scope and functional negotiations with Business Analyst (DC office)
• Management of development team of 5 people (later grown to 9
• Inter-office coordination of architectural tasks (Spain - Argentina)
• Design and development of new back-office architecture
• Design and development of front-end JS and CSS framework
• Technical training and coaching for other teams (Colombia, Chile, Spain and USA)
• Development of core functionality for the application
• Design and development of front-end components

Application Leader

Calanor Labs

Opened my own consulting company to handle the increasing requests for freelance consulting.
My core business was outsourcing services for bigger consulting companies with a shortage of
people.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
• Peak of 5 employees and 8 concurrent projects
• Developed mission-critical applications for Banco de Crédito del Perú and several private
retirement and insurance companies. These applications are used nation-wide until
today
MANAGEMENT HIGHLIGHTS
• Run the whole company, from accounting to hiring and sales while developing the
complex projects
RESPONSIBILITIES:
• In charge of negotiating new projects and getting new clients
• Responsible of people resource management and day to day operations
• Technical trainings and presentations for clients
• Internal trainings for employees

Founder

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

The US Steel account was handled by Hewlett-Packard El Paso office in Texas and I was assigned
to a remote team for the entirety of the project. The project was to create applications for the
existing processes that were handled, in the majority, using Excel. I was assigned to the Granite
City plant with a short assignment (by request of the client) to the Gary Works plant.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
• The client was so satisfied with the first delivery that changed the planning to have
additional applications developed from Argentina
• Requested specifically by the client (from a team of 20) to work on the .Net applications
for Granite City and Gary Works
• The UI styles and application framework I developed were picked up by US Steel for use
by their internal IT department
RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Direct contact with the client for functionality, change requests, scope negotiations and
training
• Technical design and full documentation of the requirements
• Production support for these three mission-critical applications
• Created, designed and development an application framework that halved development
time of new applications (selected for HP Garage)
• Delivered all assignments consistently under time and budget

Senior Application Developer

I'm an experienced manager with 20+ years of experience and deep technical knowledge. I have overseen teams of various sizes both local and distributed over multiple time-zones and cultures, as well as defined company IT strategy and technology roadmaps for both startups and big multinationals.

I am driven by efficiency and optimal resource usage and enjoy improving processes and teams to grow and expand their limits so that we can reach objectives and provide value.

On the technology side, I have a developer background touching backend, frontend, database, and cloud technologies in a variety of business scenarios from banks and insurance companies to metallurgy industries.

taplio

The Battle

Rick Farrell

Carlos Esquivel

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