I joined Amazon’s advertising business in 2013, when the UK team was just 40 people. As one of the first design hires, I collaborated across the entire business – from client engagement to implementation with engineers. In the early years, the design team tackled a high volume of relatively simple tasks, with Q4 and the run-up to Christmas being especially intense – but also energising and rewarding.
To meet growing demand, our small international design team pooled resources to maximise output – using Jira and Kanban to track workloads and introducing SLAs to ensure complex projects received appropriate support. As the business expanded, so did opportunities with new platforms like Fire Tablet, Fire TV, and Amazon’s landing page tools. I became lead designer for the CPG and CE verticals, partnering with major brands including P&G, Nestlé, Unilever, Philips, Samsung, Microsoft, and Sony, while also supporting new business with fashion and luxury clients like Burberry and Nike – delivering tailored ad experiences and customer journeys.
As the business grew, investment in design resources followed, with offshore teams in Bangalore, Delhi, and the Philippines established to handle high-volume, low-complexity work. I played a key role in hiring and developing these teams, while also recruiting and managing UK-based contractors to support peak Q4 demand and ongoing needs.
After my promotion to L6 Senior Art Director, I continued overseeing offshore team workflows through daily standups and Kanban, while coaching leads to take on greater responsibility. As an Amazon mentor, I supported designers across the US, France, and Germany – helping them build new skills, streamline processes, and progress toward promotion.
With high-volume, low-complexity work successfully offshored, the UK and EMEA teams gained bandwidth to evolve our design services. As demand for impactful advertising grew, landing pages became a core campaign requirement. EMEA leads collaborated to create a templated, responsive solution – scalable in complexity and eCommerce functionality. These landing pages drove strong engagement and ROAS, significantly contributing to revenue and business growth.
To streamline landing page creation, we partnered with tech leads to build a self-service tool (Landing Page Builder), enabling designers to work independently without the need of front-end developers. To compliment this, I optimised design templates for our offshore teams, cutting design time and SLAs by over 15%, while reducing errors and QA bugs by more than 300%.
With landing page creation automated, we brought in project managers and a brand strategist to support our expanding custom business – serving high-profile clients with large budgets and bold ideas. As acting Creative Director, I led ideation sessions and discovery workshops to uncover client challenges and deliver user-centered solutions powered by the latest eCommerce technology.
Driven by a deep passion for end users, I served as both the voice of the customer and the primary point of contact for my team. I consistently challenged and reframed strategies to better align with user needs, while scaling output and automating processes – always prioritising long-term value over short-term gains.