I help mission-driven companies unlock rapid growth through design, technology and behavior change.
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Since 2009 I've had the pleasure of working with a range of breakthrough companies of varying sizes across healthcare, civic tech, climate tech and insurtech.
I dropped out of college to build my first eCommerce company when I was 18. Since then, I've been exploring the intersection of business, design and technology to contribute to causes that I care about while collaborating with people I love.
I've lived in community, grown my own food, planted thousands of trees, and raised two beautiful boys.
I'm a surfer, a guitar player and a speciality coffee nerd.
Alongside my consulting career, I've also built my own companies—learning first hand what it takes to transform vision into value, build a team, go to market and scale. I've built profitable social enterprises as well as innovative global impact networks.
My experience as an entrepreneur has shaped me into a generalist. I know how to take responsibility, galvanize teams around a shared vision and get the job done. Having worked as a consultant inside hyper-growth startups and Fortune companies alike, I also cultivate company culture and team dynamics to inspire healthy, long-term growth.
Over the past sixteen years, I’ve worked with a variety of organizations including innovative startups, large corporations, social enterprises and leading universities.
Using an AI-powered IDE, I designed and built a mobile-first web application using React that integrates with ChatGPT 5 mini. The app leverages Dr. BJ Fogg's Behavior Design models and methods out of Stanford University to help users clarify their aspirations, identify target behaviors and automatically create impact via Greenspark. This is an app clone inspired by my friend David Ngo's Spark Habits.
In just six months as head of growth, I helped bring the Base Carbon Tonne (BCT)—the world’s first liquid carbon credit—to over $4B in volume on SushiSwap, and helped launched the Nature Carbon Tonne (NCT) with over $50M in liquidity. During this time, the team grew from 6 to 36 people, through an undisclosed Series A led by Union Square Ventures. This experience placed me at the forefront of tokenized carbon markets and gave me deep expertise at the intersection of DeFi, climate finance, and community-led ecosystem growth.
I led the rebrand and website redesign for Pikl, a Norwich-based startup pioneering insurance for the sharing economy. Reporting directly to CEO Louise Birritteri, I facilitated a series of design sprints to validate customer needs and shape the product strategy. The successful launch positioned Pikl as the UK’s leading specialist in this market and contributed to securing several million pounds in investment, enabling the team to scale beyond 50 employees.
In a later engagement, I also helped Louise recruit and hire both her CMO and CTO, two long-term hires for her senior leadership team who have continued to create value and maintain alignment with the organization.
At Peak Democracy, I led a remote product team through a major product redesign that addressed core usability challenges and delivered continuous improvements for customers. I also partnered with the executive team to conduct technical due diligence during the company’s acquisition by OpenGov, an a16z-backed civic tech firm.
After the acquisition, I stepped into a product management role where I worked with stakeholders to develop a 12-month strategic roadmap and integration strategy with the rest of the OpenGov product suite.
Whether you're trying to roll out the latest AI tools, pivot to a new business model or launch a new product—I've got you covered.
Make your products a vessel for your organization's mission and vision. Align your business needs with your customers and stakeholders using AI-assisted product methodologies, customer discovery and prototype thinking.
Leverage the power of human-centered design to better understand your customers and move from idea to ideation with minimal friction and waste. Test hypotheses with prototypes and propagate learnings across the organization.
Understand what behavior is, how it works and how to design for lasting change in any environment. Apply the leading methodologies developed by Dr. BJ Fogg out of Stanford University's Behavior Design Lab to your products and organization.
Develop your niche as a thought leader in your industry by creating content that positions you as the authority you are. Use the best in AI tools to create a content suite in less than two hours per week. Get booked at major speaking conferences and open doors to new opportunities.
Create cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for value creation and immediate impact using AI and other leading technologies. Apply lean methodologies inside your organization to rapidly identify, evaluate and test new ideas. Use the latest AI tools to streamline your workflow, maximize efficiency and minimize waste.
All throughout my career I've been passionate about telling stories and inviting people to join in my mission. As a result, I've learned what it takes to create a niche, build a following and establish expertise.
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At ReFi DAO, I helped grow a global movement rooted in local startup communities. Through our Local Node Incubator (launched with Commons Stack), we empowered entrepreneurs around the world—especially in the Global South—to access resources, connect with peers, and bring regenerative projects to life.
Together, we mobilized hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to support real climate action on the ground, from reforestation to community resilience. What started as a small experiment has now scaled into a thriving network of local hubs driving planetary impact.
Standing at the precipice of humanity's greatest challenge—and opportunityI invite you on a transformative journey into the heart of planetary regeneration
Our premiere episode features the remarkable Giannandrea Giammanco of FVTURA, who built and sold a successful algorithmic trading company by age 27, only to invest everything into understanding systemic change.
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I had the privilege of hosting Ryan Panchadsaram—co-author of Speed & Scale and advisor at Kleiner Perkins—for a wide-ranging conversation on mobilizing collective action for the climate crisis. We explored how technology, investment, and community movements can accelerate decarbonization, and how to ensure innovation is always “in service of” the planet.
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Mission-driven communities empowered by blockchain technology have the potential to address climate change, biodiversity loss and the underlying social structures that got us here in the first place.
In the article below I will unpack this thesis and explain why the ReFi movement is the most promising application of distributed ledger technology—also known as blockchain.
We call it ‘ReFi’“ReFi” is the regenerative finance movement at the edges of the third evolution of the internet (Web3). The abbreviation is a signal to it’s origins in DeFi (decentralized finance).
There are many people discussing these ideas in the Toucan community, Regen Network as well as in ReFi DAO which has become a home for the regenerative finance movement with over 40 ReFi founders meeting regularly to support each other to scale climate action using Web3...
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The "Land Back" movement advocates returning land to Indigenous communities in the spirit of both social justice and ecological regeneration. While seemingly obvious, this movement requires not only external restoration of land ownership but an internal reconciliation of identity—a journey home to an authentic self free from the constructs of colonization.
Over the past ten years, I've been fortunate to work with and for people from some amazing organizations.
"John is an exceptionally talented and well-rounded designer. He brings his infectious enthusiasm and creativity to everything he works on. He’s one of Planet Earth’s finest human beings—a person whose values and integrity sit at the source of all his endeavours.
His blend of skill, intelligence and passion makes him an ideal collaborator. He helps individuals and teams tackle seemingly insurmountable challenges with grace, humility and pragmatic optimism. Talk to him. You won’t regret it."
“John led our product team through discovery and research into prototyping and through several iterations. I was very impressed by John's capacity as a designer, as a team leader, and as a writer.
John will go out of his way to make sure clients are happy with the final product.”
“John led our company through a major product redesign. His intense focus on the needs of our customers was paralleled by his deep desire to understand our business and meet its goals...
After a few short months, he redesigned key components of our product which were applauded by multiple clients as beautiful enhancements to our legacy system.”
Answers to common questions about my consulting, approach, and experience.