I lead design transformations that reshape entire businesses.
50m users. 40+ designers. 3 continents. Real impact.
Hi, I'm Sam
I'm a design leader who builds. Always have been, always will be.
Thirteen years across super apps, fintech, and enterprise. A systems thinker who leads by example and gets into the problems, both large and small.
I move ideas up to the C-suite and down to the team, switch context fast, and stay close to the fundamentals. I measure what I ship and prove the impact in the data. I bring that same discipline to AI, applying it where it changes the work, not where it just burns tokens.
The work shifts, the learning never stops, and the curiosity carries. Proud father of 1.
What I do best
Strategic leadership
Building product vision that holds across the executive table. From Careem's super app vision to Thrive's 2026 strategy now driving the roadmap, both built on research the leadership team trusts.
Product strategy and systems thinking
Looking at the whole system, not just the design layer. Product, service, and platform strategy for super apps, fintechs, and enterprise SaaS, from 8K subscribers to 50m.
Cross-functional leadership
Getting siloed teams onto the same problem and shipping the answer together. The hard part isn't agreement, it's holding it through the trade-offs.
Design and research excellence
Research that forces decisions, design that ships, 0-1 products that stick. Strategy that doesn't make it to production isn't strategy.
AI-native design and delivery
AI in everything: how I think, prototype, ship, and run a team. AI is how the work gets done, not a separate practice.
Team and organisational development
Building design organisations that hold themselves up. Scaled from 4 to 40+, async across MENA, UK, and US, with AI baseline across every designer.
Thirteen years, five companies, one throughline
Thrive Learning
Remote
Oct 2024 - Present
- Head of Design (May 2025 - Present)
- Product Design Consultant (Oct 2024 - May 2025)
Leading the transformation of a traditional LMS into an AI-native learning platform serving enterprise clients across the UK and internationally. Managing a team of 8 designers across product, research, and design systems. Partner directly with the CPTO and CEO on product strategy and business transformation.
- Led the 2026 product vision end-to-end (stakeholder research, six cross-functional workshops, engineering feasibility, primary user research, working HTML prototype), converging five workstreams into a single framework now driving the company roadmap
- Landed Google and Emirates as the largest clients in company history, both citing UX as the key decision driver, generating $5m ARR including contract extension
- Rebuilt the design system on shadcn with Tailwind, set up a cross-functional guild to own it as a maintained product, and embedded AI through component creation, documentation, and drift tracking
- Cut time from discovery to delivery by 60% through AI-powered automation of discovery and handover processes
- Integrated two acquisitions (Guider, AI mentoring; Huler, digital workplace hub), delivering MVP ahead of the winter release and defining subsequent phases within the 2026 vision
- Rebuilt the design function from the ground up after inheriting a team with no process: established workflows, QA protocols, design crits, research validation, and a buddy system pairing senior and junior designers on mentoring and product ownership
- Made AI baseline capability across the team, with half the team now shipping code to production
Careem
Dubai, UAE
May 2021 - Oct 2024
- Head of Product Design, Senior Director (Mar 2024 - Oct 2024)
- Head of Product Design, Director (Jan 2023 - Mar 2024)
- Senior Design Manager (May 2021 - Jan 2023)
Led design transformation for the dominant super app of the Middle East, serving 50m customers across UAE, KSA, and Jordan. Managed 40+ designers across product design, research, and UX writing. Partnered with C-suite on product strategy and business objectives. Owned the design team budget, P&L, and vendor relationships.
- Scaled Careem Plus from 8K to 300K subscribers (37.5x growth) with 90% retention past six months and the highest CSAT/CES scores in the company
- Launched Dineout, generating $1m annual GTV in year one with the highest CSAT of any Careem service; built as a complete dining journey from discovery to payment with integrated ride booking, discounts, and Careem Pay split bills
- Built the day-one stacked offer that became the launch playbook for new cities, taking Plus into Abu Dhabi, Amman, and Riyadh
- Added Plus benefits to all 10 Careem business units, increased overall platform retention by 3 percentage points to 70%, and lifted app store rating from 4.0 to 4.6
- Led the most comprehensive research programme in Careem's history: a 4-phase approach covering C-suite interviews, customer and Captain research (1,000+ customer surveys, 2,000+ Captain surveys), and heuristic and landscape analysis of 20+ competitors
- Built the AI-native super app vision approved by the board as the company's strategic direction, laying the groundwork for the first ML-powered recommendation and routing systems and aligning roadmaps across all verticals
- Stabilised and rebuilt the design org over six months after inheriting a function in crisis post-rebrand; brought in strong design leads for each vertical and a new head of research, moving from 9 competing roadmaps to one unified strategy with executive alignment
Mashreq Bank PSC
Dubai, UAE
Jul 2020 - May 2021
- Assistant Vice President
- Managed 12 designers across UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and India
- Led the app redesign that drove an 80% increase in product discovery
- Elevated design's strategic role across product, research, and stakeholder teams
The Emirates Group
Dubai, UAE
May 2018 - Jul 2020
- Lead User Experience & Service Designer
- Led the Expo 2020 tourism strategy and the Dubai Experience platform, landing successful package launches and increased revenue
- Introduced design thinking across the Emirates network, with 40% of teams completing training
Keytree
UK & USA
Jan 2013 - Jul 2017
- Lead Interaction Designer
- Managed a team of 4 UI designers
- Led a 0-1 white-label CRM in collaboration with Apple, SAP, and Burberry, resulting in multi-company launches and contract negotiations driving revenue growth
Education
Lund University
2011–2012
Industrial, product and design management
University of Brighton
2009–2012
BSc. Product Design with Professional Experience
Achievements & recognition
- Speaker, ProductTank Dubai
- SAP DemoJam 2016 winner
- MasterCard Masters of Code, Regional winner (London) 2015
- MasterCard Masters of Code, Global runner-up 2015
- SAP DemoJam 2015 winner
- Mentor, ADPList (2020–present)
- Design thinking trainer, schools and businesses across Dubai