Mark Chamberlain.

I grew up in a small village and got into art early, the way a lot of people do. What shifted things was foundation year, when I found David Carson's work and realised design was about thinking, not decorating. I went to De Montfort University, came out into agencies, and spent years working across very different problems: charity campaigns, NHS communications, automotive advertising. I learned the craft and I learned how to think about things I hadn't encountered before.

The move into product was gradual. As the web evolved I taught myself to build for it, which meant I could see the gap between what designers hand over and what developers actually need. That ended up being useful. I moved into product design for regulated financial services and have spent the last several years leading design across adviser workflows, compliance tooling, and management information reporting. When the work needed it I got into the codebase. I know enough VB.NET and C# to have a real conversation with engineers rather than guessing at constraints.

Where I want to get to is lead or head of design, somewhere I can shape how a team approaches design problems rather than just solving them individually.