Origin
I've already done every part of this work. Now I do it for myself — and for people building something of their own.
Twelve years in consulting. I've held every role this work requires — individual contributor, team lead, delivery manager, account owner. I've run discovery and run contracts. I've set strategy in boardrooms and sat with end users in their real environments. I've done the hiring, the firing, the tough client conversations, and shipped products to production.
Then the question became unavoidable: if I'm going to have to do this anyway, why not do it for me?
That's why this practice exists. I work with people who made a version of the same call — building something of their own, betting on their own judgment. The person you talk to is the person doing the work. I have a stake in getting it right.
What makes this different
Direct line of ownership, top to bottom.
Most projects get handed off somewhere. Strategy to design. Design to engineering. Engineering to QA. Each handoff costs something — context, continuity, accountability. I own the full arc, which means those costs stay low and the work stays coherent.
The range matters. I've run research sessions on-site with security officers at homeless shelters and strategy sessions in executive boardrooms. Any room. Any audience. The empathy comes from being close to the work at every level of it.
On AI
I build with AI, not just around it.
AI is part of how I work every day. I've built custom agentic workflows and tooling for my own consulting practice — turning meetings and discovery into actionable strategy in hours instead of weeks, and using spec-driven development to go from idea to working product fast. My clients get the same benefit: I build similar systems for them, when it's the right call.
AI doesn't have to be in every solution. When it is, I know how to use it and how to build it.
Experience
Twelve years, one throughline: craft first, then the accountability to ship it.
BA, Media and Information Systems — human-computer interaction focus, Michigan State University, 2015. Twenty-five engagements since. Six became full case studies — the rest shaped the pattern.
Craft
Rosetta / SapientRazorfish — learning the work, building the foundation
Growth
Robots & Pencils, IC years — deepening expertise across industries
Leadership
UX Practice Lead — leading the discipline, not just the project
Delivery
Post-reorg to VP — horizontal ownership, end-to-end accountability
CRAFT — Rosetta / SapientRazorfish · Oct 2015 – Sep 2017
2015–17
Signet JewelersMention
First job out of college — enterprise eCommerce scale from day one across Zales, Jared, Kay, and Piercing Pagoda. Working directly with Signet's Head of eCommerce set the tone for everything that followed.
2015–16
Whirlpool / Maytag / KitchenAidMention
Led design across a shared eCommerce re-platform for three brands. A related VR repair-training tool — built from real CAD models — solved a genuine cost problem, not a marketing one.
2016–17
J.JillMention
Women's apparel eCommerce redesign. Primary UX designer, requirements through final design.
GROWTH — Robots & Pencils, individual contributor · Sep 2017 – Apr 2022
2017–18
Perkins + WillMention
ProjectX — a white-glove client portal for one of the world's leading architecture firms. Document approval, permit tracking, 3D render presentation. 248 hours.
Late 2017
An Australian neobankMention
End-to-end mobile banking build, concept through production. First of three fintech engagements. 141 hours.
2018
Varo BankMention
Competitive research and a new brand identity pitch for the US neobank. 32 hours.
2018
A provincial governmentMention
Digital identity verification, designed for accessibility at population scale — anyone, any age, any technical comfort. The pitch won the development contract. 131 hours.
2018
Ag4Life / NutrienMention
Two agricultural educational games in the same stretch — a farm-safety game for kids and feature work on Nutrien's Farmers 2050. 28 hours combined.
2018
A global security services firmCase study
657 hours · Phase 1 of 2
An open brief with no defined scope. In-field research at a tech office, a convention center, and a homeless shelter produced the findings, personas, and roadmap that two production apps were built from — one still live since 2019.
Continued seven years later — see 2025 below.
Read the case study →
2018–20
An enterprise content management companyCase study
3,140 hours · Overlapped with Securitas mid-2018
8 designers, 400+ developers, no seat at the table. Built a new process framework, then did the work it called for: research and design across two clinical products, plus a design system with its own governance team.
Read the case study →
2019
WestJet — with the Apple Design TeamMention
A multi-day on-site sprint in Vancouver with real cabin crew, working alongside Apple's design team as a peer, not a subcontractor. The concept fed WestJet's long-term product roadmap. 42 hours.
2019
ModelLand (Tyra Banks)Mention
Concept design for an immersive phygital beauty experience — brand identity, app, and projection-mapped activations. COVID canceled the build; the concept stands on its own.
2020
Walmart — Apparel Planning ToolMention
An internal tool turning historical sales data into store-layout decisions for planners. 351 hours.
2020
A major US retailer entering healthcareCase study
662 hours · 5 months
A brand-new healthcare category inside retail stores. The hardest problem wasn't scheduling — it was making healthcare pricing honest and legible upfront. Presented directly to the client's Head of Design.
Read the case study →
2020–21
CPKC (CP Rail)Mention
Precision Terminal Management — reimagining train yard operations during COVID. Solved the no-access problem with GoPro self-recorded contextual inquiry, 20+ interviews. 696 hours.
2021
Akerna (formerly MJ Freeway)Mention
Unified three acquired cannabis seed-to-sale platforms into one system covering the full operational lifecycle. 275 hours.
2021
DaisyMention
A connected BB-gun target app — real shot placement became your move in a remote multiplayer game. Usability tested with 11–16 year olds. 207 hours.
2021–22
Toronto HydroMention
Account management, billing, and a map-based outage tracker for Canada's largest city utility. 126 hours.
2021–22
GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group)Mention
Solo engagement — research, design, and process change to fix the world's largest expert network's broken client-to-expert matching. Improvements were measurable. 385 hours.
2021
Greenwood BankMention
Design and system consulting through implementation for the Black-founded neobank's production app.
LEADERSHIP — Associate Practice Lead / UX Practice Lead · Apr 2021 – Apr 2024
2022
LunaYouMention
Research and design for a maternal-health app supporting expecting mothers in underserved communities.
2022–24
A global B2B technology distributorCase study
3,203 hours · Just over 2 years · Overlapped with the next entry from late 2023
Two concurrent leadership roles: vendor experience design lead, and design-system governance across three product surfaces — customer, vendor, and internal. 40+ designers now work under the system.
Read the case study →
April 8, 2024 — reorg. New CEO, full restructure. Discipline-based leadership (UX Practice Lead) was eliminated in favor of horizontal Delivery Lead roles spanning every function on a product team. Not a setback — the pivot from leading a discipline to owning delivery end to end.
DELIVERY — Delivery Manager → VP, Associate Client Partner · Apr 2024 – Present
2023–25
A global in-flight entertainment and connectivity providerCase study
2,830 hours · 4 phases · Spans the reorg
Design lead to delivery manager on the same engagement. Three product surfaces — admin, airline, and passenger — shipped to first release. No translation cost between the strategy and the delivery.
Read the case study →
2025–now
A global security services firmCase study
1,400+ hours and counting · Phase 2 of 2
Brought back seven years later to lead a 38-person delivery team. Shipped geolocation to 80,000 users and saved a key contract, then a full platform redesign, plus two AI pilots and a new greenfield app.
Same client as 2018 — see Phase 1 above.
Read the case study →
Jan 2026
A major travel companyCase study
29 hours · 48-hour hackathon
AI Strategist on a small team — defined the problem, designed the evaluation framework, wrote the orchestrator prompt. The POC worked. It went into a production build phase.
Read the case study →
Now
Theo Thompson Co.
Founder & Principal. Solo consulting practice — product strategy, design, and development for companies of any size.
How I work
Four words. Consistent in every engagement.
Grounded.
Rooted in craft and real work. No buzzwords, no over-promising. Specific about place, timeline, and constraints.
"8 weeks. Not 'a few weeks.'"
Sharp.
Precise and economical. Every sentence earns its place. Clarity is a form of respect for your time.
"Three deliverables. One owner. Four weeks."
Warm.
Not corporate, not cold. This is a person, not a department. Genuinely invested in your outcome — sounds like a trusted colleague, not a vendor.
"Happy to walk through the numbers on a call — sometimes that's faster than email."
Accountable.
Owns the work, owns the outcome. Language is specific, not hedged. When something is uncertain, I name it as uncertain.
"I got that wrong. Updated version attached with a note on what changed."
Who I'm not a fit for
Some work is a factory job. If you need a full cloud modernization, a Salesforce implementation, or a ServiceNow rollout, hire a team that specializes in it — they'll do it better than I will. I also don't take on commoditized work — the kind any agency team could execute to spec.
My practice is the work that requires judgment, presence, and end-to-end ownership. If that's not what you need, we're not a fit, and saying so upfront saves us both time.
Outside the work
I'm in a western suburb of Denver, fifteen minutes from downtown, with my partner and our dog. I cook — whatever cuisine I haven't tried yet. I take photographs: wildlife out in the back country, urban scenes when I'm closer to home. I play guitar, mostly Saturday mornings with the dog at my feet. I grew up between Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland — a Midwest upbringing that shapes how I show up.
