I never stopped making

Design leader for complex products. I raise craft, build the systems, and ship tooling myself with AI.

Open to design leadership roles across Europe, plus advisory work.

Start a conversation → See the work →
  • Irish citizen · full EU work rights
  • Fluent Dutch
  • Open across Europe
  • Currently in Abu Dhabi
Work · 01 → 04

Selected Work

Four pieces of work where I owned the outcome end to end: finding the real problem, shaping what got built, and shipping it. Real numbers. Real decisions. The calls I would defend in a room.

01
Alef Education · 2022 → Present

Design System and Product Operations

Alef’s platform had grown to over sixty templates with no governance, and product decisions were being made on gut feel. I cut the system to twenty-two disciplined components, then built a feedback analytics dashboard in Claude Code myself: the data pipeline, the chart rendering, and a 0.89 correlation that proved which user complaints actually mapped to drop-off.

€200K saved yearly
60 → 22 templates to components
10 → 3 days to decide

What mattered: the proof of concept became permanent infrastructure.

02
Sanoma Learning · NL · 2018

Strategic Discovery for a 2M+ User Platform

Case study →
03
Alef Education · 2023 → Present

Making an Organisation AI-Native

Case study →
04
Alef Education · 2022 → Present

Building a Team That Ships and Stays

Case study →
Career · 1992 → Now

30+ years, four countries

Every role added craft, and a sharper sense of how design earns its keep.

1992–2005
Sony Music Europe
Design Lead
Music · NL
2005–2014
Digital Consultancy
Lead UX/UI Designer
Public sector · NL
2014–2018
Freelance
UX/UI Designer
Deutsche Bank · Aegon
2018–2022
Sanoma Learning
Senior UX Designer
EdTech · NL
2022–present
Alef Education
Head of Design
EdTech · Abu Dhabi
What colleagues say · 01 / 02
Don brings a global design perspective that enhances products and resonates with users worldwide. He also led the charge in integrating AI into the design process, keeping the team innovative and efficient.
Philip Chesney Former Product Manager, Alef Education
Don came in with so much experience, yet he served the younger ones in building up strategic blocks. Really impressed with Don’s constant push to become better in focusing on end users and what they need.
Edwin Persoon Former CTO, Iddink Group (Sanoma Learning)
Approach · 01 → 04

How I work

I trained in the Swiss International Typographic Style and Spiekermann’s typographic principles. That foundation runs through everything I build: clarity is a functional requirement, not a stylistic preference. My north star for any piece of work is that it should be impossible to misunderstand.

01

Hands in the work

The best design leaders keep their hands in the work. I design product, write the words, and build the design systems and tooling alongside the team, because taste you do not use goes stale, and you cannot raise a bar you have stopped touching.

02

AI is my default, not my pitch

I build with AI every day: production tools, research synthesis, the systems that run my own week. I have taught it to a team of forty and shipped real tooling with it solo. The value was never the tool. It is what one person can build once thinking with AI becomes the default.

03

Evidence before opinion

I take research to the board, not concept decks. When a product needs a new direction, I start with what users actually do. Opinion earns its seat at the table. It does not get one by default.

04

Clarity is how I lead

My team spans eight nationalities. They do not need close management. They need context, honest feedback, and the trust that their decisions will hold. I set clear goals and make genuine room for critique, and the work gets better for it.

Credentials · Writing

Credentials & writing

Professional development

  • UX Management Certification Nielsen Norman Group
  • Strategic Design Leadership Masterclass 96% distinction TU Delft
  • Design Sprint Certification AJ&Smart
  • Information Architecture & Facilitating UX Workshops Nielsen Norman Group
  • Top 10% distinction across multiple UX courses Interaction Design Foundation

Speaking and writing

I publish on LinkedIn three to four times a week

On AI-native design, design systems, and leadership, with a steady readership among European design leaders.

Guest Lecturer, The Hague University of Applied Sciences

Design strategy and professional practice.

Read the writing →
Contact · Open to work

Senior design leadership and advisory across Europe

I lead design at Alef Education in Abu Dhabi. My roots are European: Irish citizen, a base in the Netherlands, fluent Dutch. The right role brings me home. Head of Design, Director of Design, VP of Design.

Start a conversation → linkedin.com/in/doncrowley
Portrait of Don Crowley