Design CV

Jake Shepherd

Senior design and product leader with 20+ years across agency and in-house environments, including SLT responsibility for design quality, delivery standards, and cross-functional decision making.

Profile

I lead design from concept to implementation across SaaS, digital platforms, and brand systems. At leadership level, my role has combined team direction, governance, and hands-on product design, ensuring design decisions support strategic priorities as well as usability and commercial outcomes.

Design-Led Experience

Head of Product Design and Brand, Entelechy Academy

Assessment platform, reflection app, and data insight tools

Challenge: translate nuanced behavioural data into interfaces that are usable without specialist coaching.
Solution: defined interaction patterns for filtering, ranking, comparison, and progress tracking, with clear hierarchy and restrained visual language.
Impact: supported 2,500+ activations in a 3-month period and contributed to investment outcomes exceeding £4m.

Head of Design and Product, Folio Mirrors

0-1 premium product and brand ecosystem

Challenge: build a credible premium proposition in a crowded market without fragmenting brand, product, and digital experience.
Solution: created a single design system spanning identity, product UX, web journeys, and commercial touchpoints.
Impact: delivered a coherent 0-1 proposition and supported 30+ Footlocker hardware activations over 18 months, plus five trials across Clinique, Allure, and Bobbi Brown.

Founder and Creative Director, MSDC

Brand, digital, and editorial work across sectors

Challenge: support clients with complex propositions across multiple channels while maintaining brand consistency and delivery quality.
Solution: led multidisciplinary teams to build structured design systems across digital, print, wayfinding, and campaign communications.
Impact: improved client adoption and message clarity across sectors including telecoms, retail, property, and healthcare.

Selected Outcomes

Built and governed design frameworks that converted complex service models into clear product and brand experiences.
Led cross-functional delivery from strategic definition through implementation and iteration.
Supported funding and growth outcomes in collaboration with product and commercial leadership; known contribution includes £4m+ enabled through proposition and MVP development.
Reduced engineering run-rate from c.£120k/month to c.£30k/month and infrastructure costs from c.£1,200/month to c.£200/month.