UIC Digital

Executive Director of Design

Design Leaders Dinners

Co-Founder

Foolproof

- Part of the leadership team of the business that is responsible for defining strategy, culture, and craft.

- Continually improve and evolve the design practice.

- Lead pitches, new business, and prospecting opportunities.

- Identify and establish new capabilities and methodologies.

- Provide design direction on projects and internal initiatives.

- Provide effective line management, coaching, and skills development across the team.

- Create commercial value for Foolproof with strategic design and development opportunities.

Executive Director (Experience Design)

- Own the quality of the design and development practice and the overall creative reputation of Foolproof.

- Continually improve and evolve the creative practice.

- Challenge ideas and solutions as they are produced to ensure they meet client and user needs.

- Oversee the quality of communications and creative deliverables to the client.

- Ensure the proposed solutions have a real impact on the client’s business problem.

- Give design direction and critique on projects and internal initiatives.

Creative Director

- Responsible for shaping how Foolproof generate and deliver creative ideas across the business. 

- Evolve and challenge working methodologies and practices, and drive the studio’s creative thinking, idea generation, outputs and experience design recommendations. 

- Provide overall direction of the creative output of the entire Experience Design studio.

Head of Creative

- Working for a world leading Experience Design agency has provided the platform to create meaningful and robust design solutions, whilst ensuring the user and business goals were integral in shaping the creative outputs.

- Responsible for developing the design practice, and for shaping project approaches, deliverables and working practices.

- Assembled, managed and mentored teams of designers and UX consultants.

- Ensured that the overall design thinking and creative exploration aligned to the project brief, requirements and success measures.

- Evolved the team’s design methodologies, championed new ways of working, identifying trends in design, technology and commerce. 

- Identified new business opportunities, ideas generation and internal project initiatives to help drive the business forward.

Principal Designer

BAE Systems Applied Intelligence

Working for a top digital agency gave me exposure to large brands in a variety of sectors, where I was able to utilise my design/UX knowledge. I was responsible for managing and mentoring teams to ensure we had a collaborative environment that allowed creativity to thrive.

I worked on many digital transformation projects where I was able to lead the initial definition phase, through to conceptual/proposition exploration, all the way to final design and go live. Throughout I ensured that the brand experience was adhered to and always championed the needs of the user when defining, designing or building a new digital presence.

Design Director

Lead designer for many large digital projects for commercial, government and intel clients.

Senior Designer

Digitas UK

3 Month Contract - Working on the M&S account.

Web Designer

Tesco.com

Design lead for all of the Tesco.com projects.

Lead Designer

Blue-Edged Media

Web Graphic Designer

Award-winning Executive Director with over 20 years of experience building high-performing design teams and delivering successful products for the worlds biggest brands. Recognised in the 2020 BIMA 100 for Creative Leadership.

Passionate about human-centered design and iterative processes to optimise product-market fit. Adept at galvanising organisational change through a creative and collaborative approach. Believes deeply in the power of design to make a measurable, positive impact on customers and business.

Hello network, I am actively looking for my next leadership opportunity where I can help organisations unlock the full potential of design.

I'm drawn to places where design is valued as a strategic driver, whether that's a forward-thinking agency ready to elevate their practice and business, or a product company that wants to embed design excellence into everything they build.

What energises me is creating the conditions for creative people to do their best work, building high-performing teams that deliver meaningful impact, and working alongside leadership to shape how design contributes to business success.

If you know of opportunities where strategic design thinking, team development, and commercial pragmatism matter, or if you'd just like to reconnect, I'd love to hear from you.

Please feel free to share and tag me in your networks. Thank you.

What I'm looking for:

→ Senior design leadership roles (Director of Product Design, Head of Design, CDO etc.)

→ Remote or hybrid positions across the UK and Europe (Perm or Contract)

→ Environments where design is used to drive a business and its clients, not just a service function

#OpenToWork #DesignLeadership #ProductDesign #UXLeadership #DesignStrategy

James Reeve

Executive Director with a track record of delivering successful products and services, all of which have been designed with the user at the heart. A leader who has grown and developed high-performing and award-winning design teams.

I am a seasoned leader who thrives on pushing creative thinking and challenging convention, with the energy to galvanize change. I strongly believe in iterative and systematic design to ensure a product is optimised and delivered to the market with the best chance of making a measurable impact.

Awarded a place in the 2020 BIMA 100 for Creatives & Designers.

Some of the brands I have worked with include Sky, Sony PlayStation, TfL, M&S, Virgin, TUI, Vodafone, AXA, Eli Lilly, EE, and Tesco.

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