1. Please tell us a bit about yourself, your background.
I am originally from Melbourne, Australia and moved to London around 6 years ago. My background is in Graphic Design and I studied Communication Design at Swinburne University. I have always loved being creative, even at Kindergarten my teacher would allow me to continue to paint and draw while all the other children moved on to another task. I always feel privileged that I have been able to transfer my passion into a career. Besides my job I love cooking, playing tennis, poker and relaxing on the beach with a good book.
2. What led you to this career?
Working in Graphic Design has enabled me to master fundamental and extremely important skill sets. I think it’s a huge advantage to have worked in a pre-digital age where more attention to detail is needed for for print. My first job was at Lonely Planet and over the years I have worked for all types of businesses, of all sizes. I never specialised in a particular area. In the past was more of a “jack of all trades master of none,” so I decided to change that when I found a UX/UI course at General Assembly. I didn’t know what to expect but soon started to realise how much I enjoyed and was suited to the industry since I am naturally very inquisitive and empathetic towards people in general. This was in addition to always being interested in technology and the latest trends, and together with being able to utilise my graphic design background, this made it a seamless transition.
3. What is it like to be a UX/UI Designer at Certua?
One of the first things I was impressed with when I joined Certua was the extremely strong development/technical team. This is a dream for all designers, because it gives them confidence that their solutions can be executed as accurately as possible. After working in the tech space you realise how there are so many complicated aspects to how a product works and when intelligent people in the team make everything seem simple and easy, it’s like magic. It’s absolutely the backbone to each company in our space in my opinion.
Being the sole UX/UI Designer is an exciting opportunity because I have the autonomy to explore my own creative ideas and help make every interface and interaction with the user the best it can be. Great design can only be achieved with quality data and design thinking which Certua also sees the value in.
4. What kind of projects have you worked on?
One of the first projects I worked on was the Certua small schemes platform which provides a mechanism for insurance brokers to access embedded distribution. The biggest challenge within this project was to create a design that had the ability to be customised for all different types of companies and their brand, while still making sure they look great and are compatible for different types of customers and scenarios.
Creating the UI for Banking enterprise platforms is something I have also enjoyed working on a lot, especially since I had the ability to design some aspects from end to end. This is a very innovative space with huge opportunities to aid in Financial profiling for both SMEs and individuals. By harnessing this data it allows for some very smart and innovative ways to help improve the UX.
5. What excites you the most about Certua?
There is always something interesting to work on since we have many clientele from both the insurance and wealth management industries. The fact that we are disrupting and creating new technology that has never been used before is very powerful. I also love the fact that our management team are open to all ideas and brave enough to explore different opportunities in emerging markets.
6. Please describe Certua in 3 words:
Clever, Inventive, Reliable
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