I grew up in a family of farmers, watching my mother turn simple resources into something valuable. At nine, I decided to copy her. I found things I could add value to, tried to resell them, and very quickly discovered that entrepreneurship is considerably harder when you also have homework.
Small small things about me
I grew up around farmers.
Highest I have stood
4,985m
Lenana Peak, Mount Kenya
Indoors below
16°
Household
Gathoni
Highest I have stood
4,985m
Lenana Peak, Mount Kenya
Indoors below
16°
Household
Gathoni
My first product wasn't digital. It was whatever I could convince someone to buy.
I eventually found my way into advertising, then UX and product design. The medium changed, but the instinct stayed the same: spot a problem, understand people, make something useful.
These days, I do that with Figma, research, strategy and technology—with slightly fewer negotiations over pocket money. And when I'm not designing, I'm usually writing, hiking, reading, making questionable playlists, or attempting to convince myself that 16°C isn't actually cold.
Outside of design
Mother of tiny humans, one cat, aspiring Dog mom, and several questionable life decisions. 😂
When I'm not drawing rectangles and painting outside the boxes, you can find me at the nearest hiking trail or at the summit with my favourite snack.
If it's too cold, 16° to be precise (I am a Kenyan, we have the perfect weather) you'll find me sketching, cuddling with my cat Gathoni, reading, writing, or mentoring young girls venturing into tech through community initiatives. I might be teaching some high schoolers, you never know it depends with the weather.
4,985m
highest I have stood, so far
16°
the temperature at which I stay indoors
Nine
age I started my first business
One
cat, called Gathoni
My journey, in altitude
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2012–2018
Five years in advertising
WPP Scangroup (Squad digital) and VMLY&R, in the creative department.
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2015
Two Loeries, one campaign
Won 2 loeries Awards that defined my career trajectory in 2015 under the Safaricom brand for the best TV, Film & Video Communication, and Digital & Interactive Communication categories under the Open Your Eyes Kenya awareness campaign.
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Then
Made by People, and Malakal
Previously, I worked at a startup Made by people formerly (ihub software consulting), here I was part of the team that build raise.io MVP, and spearheaded efforts in creating equitable learning and data collection efforts by Warchild in South Sudan, Malakal.
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Before
Senior Product Designer, AZA Finance
Senior Product Designer at AZA finance in Kenya, directing a small team of designers to meet the diverse needs of our web3 platform constituents at AZA (AZA finance formerly BFX, and Bitpesa). Graduated from Nairobits School with a Diploma in Digital Arts and Business.
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Now
Product Design Lead, Deriv
Hybrid role between IC and people management (3–5)
Lead UX research and product design across Deriv's crypto trading, digital asset, and partner products at a global, AI-first broker serving 3M+ traders and 117k+ partners.
I joined Deriv thinking I'd be designing screens. Instead, I found a 72-hour KYC journey, a 3-day partner activation flow, and deep links that occasionally seemed to have their own agenda. So we fixed them—bringing KYC and partner activation down to under 15 minutes, making referrals actually go where they should, and redesigning the Partner's Hub. Turns out, product design leadership is occasionally just detective work with Figma open. 😅