From design recruitment to Cognitive Design

I was born in Kerala, South India, and moved to London when I was five.

I grew up in a single-parent household in Newham, East London, with my sister and my mum, who was a teacher.

Newham was an incredible place to grow up. Different cultures, languages and ideas existed alongside each other. So did inequality. Opportunity wasn't always evenly shared.

As a child, I didn't have the language for any of that. I just knew my mum worked incredibly hard to give my sister and me opportunities.

She was the most important person in my life.

Being a single parent meant she had to play every role. She was our mum, our teacher, our protector and, as we got older, one of my closest friends.

And long before I ever discovered UX or design thinking, she taught us empathy. To think about other people. To understand that somebody else's circumstances might be different from our own. To care.

I wouldn't understand until much later how important that would become.