Design Leader • Neuroscientist • Chaos-tamer
Made in Melbourne and based in London for over a decade, I’ve led large design organisations inside fast-paced, high stakes companies while staying close enough to the work to sketch, question and refine. I’ve shaped product strategy in complex and regulated spaces, fostered design cultures that encourage clarity and curiosity, and helped teams navigate the kind of knotty problems that don’t come with templates.
I care about big ambition and real progress — creating systems, products and environments where great ideas can land, grow and turn into something genuinely useful. Neuroscience is the newest thread in my practice, sharpening how I understand how people learn, adapt and make decisions. It pushes me to lead with evidence, empathy and a healthy disregard for default thinking.
I love playing with crazy ideas, working with good people and experimenting with new technologies.
I do wish AI hadn’t ruined the em dash for us, though.
Design comes in lots of different flavours
Frankly, I feel too many labels can get in the way of just building great things. If pushed, I’d say my design sweet spot sits in the space between current behaviour and desired behaviour: understanding what’s driving people today and shaping the interventions that help them move toward better outcomes. It’s where behavioural insight and design craft meet, translating real-world patterns into the product and organisational decisions that genuinely help people tomorrow.
I’m a broad, well-rounded design leader with hands-on experience across prototyping (physical, digital and AI), design and brand systems, product flows, content designs, generative and evaluative research and service design. I've worked in-house, agency-side and in consultancies, and I’ve led both projects and functions. I'm just as comfortable coaching a first-time designer through a new technique as I am presenting a product strategy to a client or boardroom. Switching altitudes depending on what’s needed is core to how I work.
At its core, design is about making things work. It's understanding what a customer is trying to do, being explicit about how we can help them do it, and shaping the experience so it feels coherent, confident and intentional from start to finish.
Great designers pay attention at the atomic level — the small interactions, micro-decisions and moments where friction or clarity can change the whole arc of a journey. This comes from a blend of instinct, experience and evidence, and the ability to bring others with you as you navigate trade-offs.
That balance becomes even more critical when you shift from leading pieces of work to leading a function. You’re not just shaping a product, you’re shaping the environment in which good product decisions get made.
Leadership adds an extra level of spice
As a design leader, I’m interested in three things:
Product
Driving the creation of smart, elegant solutions that address real human needs
People
Overseeing a skilled, high-performing team that has everything it needs to be successful
Practice
Creating and maintaining a culture that encourages people to experiment, collaborate & learn — using the right techniques at the right time
These three pillars have helped me to avoid over-indexing on any one aspect of leading a multidisciplinary design function. I'm equally comfortable working at a birds-eye conceptual level and rolling up my sleeves to work side-by-side in the detail with my team and cross-functional partners.
Above all, I believe strongly in leading through the work. Close enough to shape the outcome and steer the craft, while creating the conditions for others to deliver and extend it.
My Design Leadership toolkit
Design direction and vision that aligns teams • Connecting taste, evidence and usability • Critique and coaching that develops rationale, clarity and intent as well as pixel perfect designs • Establishing patterns, standards, tooling and workflows that help teams design confidently and ship quickly
Elevating craft & quality
Reshaping how teams work at scale • Building horizontal functions • Shaping cross-functional systems • Balancing alignment and autonomy • Building and maintaining sustainable high performance culture • Creating systems that unlock velocity
Org design & operating models
Contextualising complex regulatory and compliance domains • Clinical + Product co-design • CQC accreditation and adherence • Maintaining velocity and innovation while safeguarding • Science-product-ops integration
Multi-domain & clinical complexity
Multi-horizon vision and roadmaps • Zero-to-one incubation • Portfolio shaping and pivots • Insight-led prioritisation • JTBD frameworks and market scans • Multi-market and localisation strategy (inc content & design alignment) • Strategic experiments
Evidence-driven product strategy
Adaptation and stress • Midlife cognition • Decision-making under volatility • The brain during the menopause transition • Workplace neurodivergence • Mental health first-aid
Applied Neuroscience
System design across multiple products and brands • Governance and standards • Product-design-engineering cohesion • Balancing quality and velocity • Brand + Product integration across customer lifecycles • Rebranding enablement • Accessibility and inclusive design
Aligning systems for scale
Much of my work sits inside commercially sensitive or in-progress environments, so I share case studies live rather than publicly or async. I also really believe that the nuance of context, constraints and decisions behind the work are best discussed in person, focusing on what’s most relevant for a particular role, project or organisation.
Let’s connect
I’m currently open to conversations about fractional and senior leadership roles, interesting IC projects and collaborations.
I also take on a small number of mentoring, coaching and speaking engagements each year. If that’s what you’re after, I’m always happy to explore whether it’s a good mutual fit.
Linkedin • hello@lisaobrien.xyz