Venue Finder
An AI-assisted way to find venues, replacing a 13-step brief builder.
Sole product designer, team of 4 engineers · 2 months
+30%qualified inbound enquiries
- 40% shorter user journey
- New sponsored-placement revenue
Sheet 00 / 03 · Introduction · Senior Product Designer, Sydney, AU
Hey, I'm Ashni
I love a good product puzzle. Especially a messy one.
Complex workflows? Disconnected systems? A marketplace with untapped potential? An MVP that needs to scale? User behaviour that doesn't quite add up?
That's my scene.
Product strategy · Systems thinking · UX/UI · Commercial growth
Sheet 01 / 03 · Selected work
Form follows function: first solve the problem, then the pixels.
HostHQ
Four separate host tools combined into one platform.
Senior Product Designer · 3 months, discovery to release
55+new One Platform clients in 3 months
- +32% hosts reporting closed bookings
- -25% navigation support tickets
TreeAssist
Onboarding for a family history subscription: eight forms cut to three with AI suggestions.
Product Designer · 2 months, 2-week experiment cycles
+18%free-trial starts
- +8% trial-to-subscription conversion
- -13% onboarding drop-off
Sheet 02 / 03 · About
Build something people love. Make it commercially viable.
I trained as an architect in the UK. Turns out, I never stopped thinking like one.
Understand the space. Challenge the brief. Design for the people using it.
These days, I do that with digital products. Untangling messy workflows, connecting the dots between people and systems, and making complicated things feel simple.
I've worked across B2B SaaS, marketplaces and growth at HeadBox and Findmypast, designing experiences that work for users and make business sense.
Core Expertise
Product strategy & systems thinking
Connecting user journeys to the wider product. Helped shape HeadBox's One Platform, joining marketplace and SaaS experiences.
B2B SaaS & platform design
Turning complex workflows into simple, scalable products. Redesigned HostHQ, merging four host tools into one.
Marketplaces
Designing both sides of the marketplace. Improved venue discovery at HeadBox, contributing to a 30% rise in qualified leads.
Growth & monetisation
Designing for customer value and commercial return. At Findmypast, covered acquisition, retention and gifting, including a Gift Subscription MVP the CV credits with over £500k in first-year revenue.
Experimentation & optimisation
Using data and experiments to remove friction. At Findmypast, ran behavioural analysis and A/B tests in a growth squad to improve trial conversion.
User research & analytics
Pairing customer insight with product data to challenge assumptions. Used research and funnel analysis to rethink HeadBox's AI Venue Finder.
End-to-end UX/UI
Taking ambiguous problems from discovery to delivery. As HeadBox's sole product designer, owned its B2B platform and B2C marketplace.
Design systems & scalability
Reusable foundations for consistent design at scale. Supported Findmypast's migration from Sketch to Figma.
Toolkit
- Design
- Figma, Sketch
- Research and testing
- Dovetail, Maze, Useberry, Hotjar
- Data
- PostHog, Looker
- Delivery
- Jira, Confluence, Notion
- AI and build
- Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor
Work history
| Rev | Date | Role | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | Jan 2026 - Jul 2026 | Senior Product Designer | HeadBox, London |
| D | Apr 2025 - Jan 2026 | Product Designer | HeadBox, London |
| C | Apr 2023 - Mar 2025 | Product Designer | Findmypast, London |
| B | Jan 2022 - Apr 2023 | Junior Product Designer | Findmypast, London |
| A | 2020 - 2021 | Sales & Marketing Associate | HealthCare Direct, Nairobi |
Education
| Date | Course | Institution |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | AI Coding for Designers | Memorisely |
| 2020 - 2021 | UX Immersion and UI Specification | CareerFoundry |
| 2016–20 | BSc Architecture | University of Bath, UK |
| 2014–16 | IB Diploma | Aga Khan Academy, Nairobi |
Field notes
Outside work, I'm usually drawing, consuming art, food & music, or plotting my next trip.
I love sketching animals, there's something satisfying about capturing a personality in just a few lines. I've played piano and flute for years, and absolutely love live music, from metalcore gigs to orchestras and pretty much everything in between.
I've explored 38 countries and counting, summited Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya, and trekked to Everest Base Camp. I'm always up for an adventure, especially if it involves mountains, wildlife or a slightly questionable amount of walking.
Giving back has always been important to me, too. I've been on the Amara Charitable Trust committee since 2011, volunteered on reforestation projects with FOECT in Kenya, and helped build a sand dam in Machakos with my high school friends, bringing better access to water to over 1,000 people.
Mostly, I just like being curious, trying new things and collecting good stories along the way.
Portrait
Fig. 01. Ashni, out riding 
Fig. 02. Planting trees (to hug later)
Sketchbook
Fig. 03. Wolf 
Fig. 04. Tiger 
Fig. 05. Owl, in the sketchbook 
Fig. 06. Silverback gorilla, drawn on the flight back from gorilla trekking in Rwanda
Find me at all sorts of gigs
Fig. 07. Anoushka Shankar and the London Contemporary Orchestra 
Fig. 08. Lorna Shore ft. Will Ramos, belting
Exploring the planet
Fig. 09. Diving, Great Barrier Reef, AU 
Fig. 10. Ballooning, Masai Mara, KE 
Fig. 11. Quad biking, Queenstown, NZ
Sheet 03 / 03 · Contact
Got an interesting problem? Let's work together!
- Show, don't tell.
- Let the data and research decide.
- Iterative development.
- Stay curious, stay ambitious.
I'm looking for Senior Product Designer roles in Sydney, permanent or contract. I'm particularly interested in B2B platforms, marketplaces and AI-native products.