Ashimi Adefesobi

Senior service designer with over 15 years designing and improving end-to-end, cross-channel services across regulated and compliance-sensitive environments, central government, local authorities and higher education. Practises insight-led design, using user needs and business objectives together to shape new services and optimise existing ones. Experienced in documenting current-state and defining future-state service blueprints and experience maps, strategising how a channel landscape should evolve, and building service roadmaps with product owners and business stakeholders.

Fluent in Design Thinking, Google Sprint and the double diamond, designing WCAG-accessible services across agile, lean and kanban delivery. Communicates design decisions, trade-offs and regulatory constraints in plain language, embeds quickly, mentors practitioners and third parties, and partners with risk, legal and compliance to deliver usable services that meet business goals.

Service and UX Designer - Independent (own limited company)

(2026-01)

Independent service and UX design through own limited company, combining client delivery with AI-assisted design and prototyping.

• Building interactive prototypes and data-layer work with AI coding tools, applying practitioner-level AI-assisted delivery to service and product concepts.

Senior UX and Service Designer - Gulp Digital

(2025-06 - 2026-01)

• Led discovery across complex council service journeys for Waltham Forest Council, surfacing pain points and prioritising improvement opportunities.
• Facilitated stakeholder workshops, translating operational complexity into structured service improvements.
• Produced responsive, accessible, multi-channel service and interface designs.

Transformation Consultant, Digital Services Transition - Brunel University London

(2024-11 - 2025-04)

Defined future-state shared services within a £32m university cost-reduction programme, moving fragmented documentation into clear service definitions, ownership and operational readiness.

• Co-designed a university-wide service catalogue with descriptions, ownership, support responsibilities and SLA-style expectations; produced service maps, governance artefacts and risk logs under hard transition deadlines.
• Managed critical-path delivery to a fixed launch, engaging PVCs, directors and heads of service across digital services, HR, finance and campus services.

Lead Product and Strategy Consultant - Takumi

(2024-04 - 2024-11)

• Defined a persona-led MVP roadmap across three customer journey types, moving an influencer marketing platform from managed service toward self-serve.
• Structured a fragmented cross-channel journey spanning email, spreadsheets, web and CMS into a coherent digital service with clear ownership and handoffs.
• Designed and released a live in-product creator shortlist workspace across multiple social platforms, making cost-to-serve visible; facilitated prioritisation with CTO-level stakeholders.

Lead Process Designer and Digital Transformation Lead - Pertemps

(2022-01 - 2024-03)

Sole designer across research, service design, UX, UI and content; ran user research, journey mapping and iterative design, coordinating handover with development teams in the UK and India.

• Designed an internal recruiter CRM and candidate management portal covering the full candidate lifecycle across a fragmented recruitment technology stack.
• Salary Calculator campaign contributed to an MRS Awards 2023 nomination.

Lead UX and Service Designer - Exposure

(2019-06 - 2021-12)

Redesigned HGV driver recruitment for Sainsbury's (with Pertemps as the client), replacing a high-friction branch-based process with a live digital service under COVID constraints; delivery value cited at approximately £20m and reused across other recruitment journeys.

• Designed an NLP-driven onboarding chatbot at the highest drop-off point of the journey, defining conversational flows, intents and content.
• Delivered client-facing discovery, journey mapping, information architecture and responsive design; advanced interactive prototyping in Principle, ProtoPie and Framer.

Web Optimisation Manager / UX Consultant - Reckitt Benckiser

(2018-11 - 2019-04)

Optimised digital brand experiences across Gaviscon, Veet, Nurofen and Strepsils, improving content structure, navigation and conversion paths across desktop and mobile in a regulated consumer-health context. Invited to extend into a permanent role.

Service Design Consultant - Methods Digital

(2015-03 - 2016-12)

Mapped the Department for Education apprenticeship service ecosystem end to end across apprentices, employers, training providers, colleges, awarding and certification bodies.

• Produced service maps, journey flows and system diagrams; presented findings and options to senior DfE stakeholders in London and Coventry.

Web, UX and Service Designer - London Borough of Hounslow

(2014-06 - 2015-02)

• Led UX and UI on the Sort It resident reporting app (native iOS and Android, published on both app stores) and the borough website redesign.

Service and UX Designer - London Borough of Richmond upon Thames

(2011-01 - 2014-05)

Redesigned the council website to cut failure demand, shifting resident contact from phone and in-person channels to online self-serve.

• Won leadership budget and mandate by reframing failure demand as cost: the top call categories mapped onto the worst-performing web pages, proving the calls were a website problem.
• Ran stakeholder and Customer Services interviews, resident surveys and moderated usability testing including blind and assistive-technology users; produced service blueprints, journey maps and information architecture for complex multi-channel services.

BA (Hons) - Graphic Design (Advertising specialism) - Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London

User Experience Design - General Assembly, London