Fractional Design Leader · Australia
Design leadership on tap. AI products shipped.
I'm the senior design leader for Australian startups and scale-ups shipping AI products, one to three days a week. Twenty years leading design across fintech, retail, marketplaces and SaaS at Coles, Seek, Woolworths and MYOB. Four AI products shipped in the last year. I set the direction, and I stay on the tools.
Available for new engagements · Melbourne, Sydney and across Australia
Working with Seed to Series B startups and scale-ups in fintech, SaaS, marketplaces, retail, health, agtech and the outdoor economy.
The problem
Your AI features shipped. So why is nobody using them?
Most AI features that ship never get used. MIT recently put it at 95% of enterprise pilots that never move the business. It’s rarely an engineering problem. The engineers built what was asked. The PMs shipped on time. But nobody senior owned the design, so you end up with a feature that works without being wanted.
I see the same pattern at most scaleups:
- AI features users don’t trust
- a design team with no senior direction
- quality sliding as headcount grows
- a roadmap the designers can’t actually deliver
Any one of these is fixable. Left alone, they feed each other. That’s usually the point where founders call me.
The options
Your options, honestly.
Hire full-time. A genuine Head of Design costs $250k plus super, takes three to six months to find, and the good ones already have jobs. If you’re at the stage where design needs five days a week of leadership, do that. Most 20 to 200 person companies aren’t there yet.
Bring in an agency. Great for a defined deliverable with an end date. But the account manager you brief isn’t the person doing the work, and when the project wraps, the thinking leaves with them. You can’t outsource leadership by the project.
Go fractional. One to three days a week of Head of Design level judgement. Starts within days, embedded in your team, and it’s the same person every week. Me.
Unlike the big consultancies, I have skin in the game. I don’t drop a deck and leave.
How we work together
Four ways in.
One day a week
Senior judgement on tap. A weekly strategy session, async design reviews, help with hiring and the big roadmap calls. Right for teams that have designers but no senior voice.
From $5,500 a month.
Two days a week
Your Head of Design, part time. Strategy plus hands-on design work, team coaching and design ops. I set the direction on Monday and work in Figma on Tuesday.
From $10,500 a month. Three month minimum.
Three days a week
For teams in the thick of it. A big launch, a rebuild, a design org that needs proper rebuilding. Everything in two days, with enough time to drive it rather than steer it.
From $15,500 a month. Three month minimum.
AI Product Sprint
4 to 6 weeks
An AI feature or MVP designed and built end to end, shipped into your codebase. Fixed scope, fixed price, working software at the end. Delivered through my studio, StackCraft.
From $20k.
The evidence
The work speaks in numbers.
Coles
Led 20+ designers across six product crews. Delivered three C-suite pillar projects, including a web platform built from scratch. That platform now powers $3.7B+ in annual online sales.
Seek
Sole designer on the iOS and Android rebuild. Mobile job applications rose 75% to 1.5 million a month, the year Seek first passed $1B in revenue.
Woolworths
Led product and service design for the fulfilment platform behind millions of weekly orders.
StackCraft
Four fixed-price AI builds shipped in the past year, designed and developed end to end. The latest, Lucar, is live in the automotive trade.
This isn’t only my experience. McKinsey followed 300 companies for five years, and the strongest design performers grew revenue about a third faster than the rest, with far better returns for shareholders. Retail banking was one of the industries they studied, which is to say it holds in exactly the kind of complex, regulated product where people assume design is a nice-to-have.
Coles · Seek · Woolworths · MYOB · Telstra · Target · Myer · Disney
Get in touch
Tell me what’s going on.
Tell me what you’re working on — a stuck feature, a team question, an AI idea that won’t land, or just whether fractional makes sense for you. I read every message and reply within a day or two.
Prefer to talk it through live? I run a handful of free 45-minute working sessions each month. Book one →
Questions
Before you ask.
What does a fractional design leader actually do?
The same job as a Head of Design, compressed into one to three days a week. Design strategy, team leadership, hiring, quality, and in my case hands-on design work too. You get the senior judgement without the full-time salary.
Who do you work with?
Australian startups and scale-ups, roughly Seed to Series B, in fintech, SaaS, marketplaces, retail, health, agtech and the outdoor economy — the point where you have designers but no senior design owner. I’m Melbourne-based and work across Melbourne, Sydney and the rest of Australia: on site where it earns its place, remote for the rest.
How much does a fractional design leader cost in Australia?
My engagements run from $5,500 a month for one day a week to $15,500 a month for three days embedded. Compare that with $250k plus super for a full-time Head of Design, if you can find one.
Do you work remote or on site?
Remote-first, and it works. Most of the engagement runs over video, Figma and Slack — the same tools your team already lives in. I’m Melbourne-based and come on site for the moments that genuinely need a room: kickoffs, workshops and exec sessions, including while I’m travelling. Where you sit matters less than having the same person in your team every week.
Can this work alongside my existing design team?
That’s the most common setup. Your designers keep doing the work. I give them direction, coaching and air cover, and I take the design conversations to the exec level where they belong.