I’m a driven, upbeat individual who loves creating beautiful products that are useful and meaningful.

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I’m a driven, upbeat individual who loves creating beautiful products that are useful and meaningful. *

An introduction…

The (very) early days 👩🏼‍💻

After graduating from High School in South Africa aged 17 I went straight into the workforce. Unsure of what I wanted to do and being torn between studying a career for something I’d enjoy vs something that makes good money (as my parents advised) lead to me taking a year off of studies while I figured out what I was going to do. My first choice was psychology and second was primary education but full time university was not an option due to funding so after a year of working first in a call center (0/10 do not recommend!) and then as a receptionist I decided to do a Bachelors degree in accounting, part time whilst working full time, figuring I could always do a bridging course after completing my degree if I still wanted to go into education. After starting my studies I was promoted into Accounts Payable and then moved into an Audit Practice to complete my vocational training all while studying part time in the evenings and on weekends. After completing my degree in 2013 I started my studies towards an ACCA masters in Accounting which I completed in 2017.

Hello London, goodbye finance 🇬🇧

In 2015 I moved to London and started work in Public practice after which I moved into industry in 2016. Feeling unfulfilled and creatively stifled in the finance world, I decided to make my first career change in 2018 and got a job as a Pastry Chef at an Artisan Bakery based on my self taught experience in and passion for baking. I threw myself into learning everything I could about pastry, the bakery and it’s business, I started doing the accounting for the business in 2019 whilst also running the pastry department as Deputy Head Pastry Chef.

From Pastry to Coffee (and everything in between) 🥐

In 2020 the company opened its first cafe which I helped set up and run, moving away from the pastry section but still baking on site at the cafe and picking up skills in making barista level coffees, and then in 2021 I set up the companies second cafe and managed it whilst doing the accounting for the whole business and providing business support to the bakery owner. My plan through this first career change was to open my own micro bakery and cafe - I knew from the get-go that there is not much career progression or room for growth in earnings working in a bakery unless I set up my own business. However the universe had other plans and as we crept out of Covid lockdowns and I started viewing locations to open my own bakery the UK slowly slipped into a cost of living crisis. It was not the time to open a bakery (maybe it will be my own little passion project when I’m older and more settled in life).

Fostering postive customer experiences every day ☕

I am now managing 2 cafe sites for a specialty coffee roaster and I find myself quenching my thirst to keep learning by embarking on a new career once again and the journey through designing and setting up cafes, making big ideas come to life and fostering positive customer experiences on a daily basis have aligned with the work I have been doing in my UX & UI studies and freelance projects. And so here I am today, finding new ways to express my creativity, simultaneously putting my analytical and logical brain to work whilst also fulfilling that very early desire I had to help people when I was 17 and trying to decide on what I wanted to study - only now I’ll be doing it by creating meaningful, useful products and making their experiences more enjoyable and delightful through user centred design.

  • User Research

    Design Thinking

    Wireframing

    Prototyping

    Usability Testing

    Visual Design

    Critical Thinking

    Data Analysis

    Financial & Management Accounting

    Leadership & Management

    English

    Afrikaans

  • Figma

    Canva

    Procreate

    G Suite

    Microsoft Office

    Xero and other Various accounting and POS software

  • Animals

    Food

    Travel

    Photography

    Fitness

    Music

    Property and Interior Decor

  • My surname is of Dutch origin and actually means Fox - my personal mascot! 🦊