Emil Smith

hi@emilsmith.pro · linkedin.com/in/emil-smith/

Profile

I'm a senior design leader with over fifteen years across product design, product strategy and front-end. I've delivered for brands like Google, eBay, Sony, Nokia, Virgin and Tinder, and led design and product at everything from small agencies to national publishers and B2B SaaS.

I think in systems: design systems that scale, research that actually informs strategy, and enough technical fluency to keep decisions grounded in what's really buildable. Lately that includes designing the governance that lets AI agents do real operational work safely.

Experience

Symantiq (SiteWalk) | Product & Strategy Lead

Jan 2026 – Present

Sole product designer across every surface of a B2B SaaS platform – mobile inspection app, AI dashboard, admin and provisioning, team management, reporting, emails and PDF reports – with the design system grounded in a direct audit of the React codebase
Own product strategy end to end: a two-stream revenue model, a six-tier pricing architecture, and roadmap governance that treats Jira as the single source of truth, with the stakeholder roadmap generated from it rather than hand-maintained
Designed the governance and operating instructions that let an AI agent operate our CRM, project management, roadmapping and reporting under human review – client onboarding down from around an hour to two or three minutes, and monthly stakeholder roadmaps from one to two days to around two hours (my own estimates)
Designed the onboarding and provisioning flow that absorbed a 22-account rollout for a £400m facilities-management group – 600 walks and 5,000 findings logged in the first month
Led prompt and product direction for the platform's AI analysis layer, designing around the model's real limitations rather than pretending they aren't there

Newsquest | Head of Digital Design

March 2021 – Jan 2026

Promoted from Lead Product Designer to Head of Digital Design (2022)

Grew and led design team from 1 to 5 designers with 100% retention
Built and managed a family of design systems across 200+ local news brands
Led product design for a multimillion-pound digital tribute platform integrating online memorials with print obituary booking system
Led user research projects that informed product strategy and development priorities
Implemented new processes for communication and collaboration between design and development teams, improving productivity
Established design operations, tooling, and workflows that enabled efficient scaling across multiple product areas

NewsNow | Creative Tech Lead

Feb 2019 – Feb 2021

Led the product's largest redesign in its 24-year history, reporting directly to CEO and COO
Conducted the company's first user research initiative in 25 years, directly informing product decisions and strategy
Built design systems and front-end implementation using Vue.js, working within the development team on tooling and infrastructure
Led both design and engineering decisions on the core product, backed by quantitative and qualitative data, user research, and competitor analysis
Managed design team while contributing hands-on development work

BPL Marketing | Designer & Developer

Jul 2015 – Feb 2019

Developed design systems for core clients, reinforcing client relationships and strengthening their digital products
Founded BPL Web, the agency's first in-house web development team
Defined and informed devOps, designOps, and project management processes
Managed and mentored junior designers on web projects for clients including Three and Tinder

Twotwentyseven | Designer & Developer

Jun 2013 – Jul 2015

Worked in a small, fast-paced team on web design, front-end development, and bespoke Shopify eCommerce sites
Delivered projects for clients including Ella's Kitchen, Brothers Cider, Tonkotsu Ramen, and Salt Yard
Contributed to company coding standards and best practices

Amobee | Digital Designer

Jul 2012 – Jul 2013

Designed mobile display ads and rich media for global campaigns for clients including Nokia, Sony, eBay, Expedia, and Angry Birds
Created responsive designs and custom mobile websites for international brands
Automated repetitive design tasks using scripts, saving hundreds of work hours and improving team efficiency

Education

UAL, London | Digital Media Design BA(Hons)

2009 – 2012

Skills

Design leadership: product strategy, team management, design systems, user research, design operations, stakeholder management
Design tools: Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, prototyping
Technical: UI/UX design, front-end development (HTML, CSS/SCSS, modern JavaScript, Vue.js, React), Git, Python
AI orchestration: governance and operating-instruction design for AI agents on live business systems, human-in-the-loop workflow design, prompt direction
Specialties: systems thinking, design-development collaboration, user-centred design, scaling design across multiple products

Interests & Values

I'm passionate about using design and technology for social good. Outside of work, I'm a musician and visual artist, and I volunteer at a youth charity where I run a community music studio. I also enjoy building audio gear, electrical engineering, and 3D printing.