I’m a compassionate, people-centric leader with a reputation for keeping calm in a crisis and over 18 years experience working for trusted brands.
With a background in digital media and online community, I take an integrated approach to user support in technology, making sure the voice (and needs, and behaviour) of the customer is heard across disciplines and departments - collaborating particularly closely with Product, Marketing, and Business Development to prioritise users in decision making. After all, it’s a lot better for everyone if users and customers aren’t driven to create tickets in the first place.
Wearing my community hat, I’m passionate about making sure users in social spaces are safe and happy. I love helping other people navigate tricky questions about moderation and community management, be it on a broadcaster’s social media channels or within an online course.
Outside of work I’m a comedy enthusiast, a lifelong player of videogames, and I help to run a friendly, inclusive online gaming community. I’m also passionate about podcasting, so I combined these interests to produce a comedy podcast ‘miniseries’ of my own about the videogame series Animal Crossing.
Projects
- A-Town: A podcast about Animal CrossingA-Town Season One was a six-episode 'miniseries' dedicated to the Animal Crossing videogame franchise by Nintendo. The podcast isn't just a deep-dive into Animal Crossing, but also a homage to highly produced podcast formats and tropes of the era in which it was made. It was featured in Edge magazine as well as various gaming blogs. Listen here: https://www.hi-score.club/atown
Work history
Head of CommunityFutureLearn
London, United Kingdom
I founded and continue to lead FutureLearn’s Community Team, responsible for the safety and happiness of our community of users: learners, partners, and enterprise clients.
I managed the team’s transition to remote-first in 2020, recruiting, onboarding and retaining team members remotely, and navigated the sudden 5X increase in tickets during the lockdown online education boom.
CONTENT MODERATION / TRUST & SAFETY
* Wrote and upheld content moderation policies and processes in response to learner behaviour and monitoring of global social issues
* Led development of internal moderation tools (e.g. blocking, sockpuppet detection)
* Led procurement of external agencies to provide round-the-clock reactive moderation service
* Wrote and upheld FutureLearn’s Safeguarding policies and process, including Child Safety and Suicidal Content
* Support partners with best practice for facilitating interactions with learners and managing moderation incidents
USER SUPPORT / CUSTOMER SERVICE
* Developed internal documentation, processes and training to empower agents to make informed decisions independently
* Authored policies and processes for managing formal Complaints
* Developed expertise in Zendesk features, including multi-brand, triggers, business rules and Side Conversations to manage all incoming contacts across multiple channels and audiences
* Manage customer service escalation from social media, TrustPilot and Yotpo
* Applied experience, resources and tools developed for supporting learners to create a new function supporting our Partners at scale
USER ADVOCACY / VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER
* Developed the discipline and competency framework for User Advocacy: representing the voice of the customer throughout the product lifecycle
* Work with Product, Marketing, Biz Dev and other functions to plan support and release of user-facing changes, initiatives and campaigns
* Use Zendesk ticket data to support product managers in making user-centric decisions
Social LeadFutureLearn
London, United KingdomFull Time
My role as Social Lead evolved with the business. Focussing on the learner experience, my responsibilities included:
User Support
* As of 2016, I have led FutureLearn's Community Team. We make sure that learners are listened to, offered the support they need, and that they are represented in the rest of the business.
Moderation
* Responsible for ensuring moderation decisions across courses are fair and consistent in a space where debate can often be complex and nuanced, giving learners the opportunity to explore ideas without being drawn into personal attacks.
* Responding to and investigating to queries about moderation decisions from learners.
* Developing best practice in this area and feeding back to the rest of the business.
Partners
* Guiding partners with best practice advice about use of external social media tools in conjunction with their courses to provide an enhanced but inclusive and accessible experience for learners.
* Advising partners on social facilitation and support, helping to ensure consistency across courses and the partnership.
Product
* Acting as an internal stakeholder helping to inform new social features for FutureLearn, understanding how they will impact our partners and learners, and communicating these changes.
Marketing (2013-2016)
Oversaw FutureLearn's presence on social media channels, provided the Marketing Team with best practice advice and hands-on support for special projects and campaigns, and support FutureLearn partners with advice and resources for promoting courses with social media content.
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Skills
- Community Management
- Customer Service
- Management
- Content Production
- Audio Production
- User Insight
- Customer Support
Education
B
B
Batchelor (Hons)Bournemouth University - Media School
- Bournemouth, United Kingdom
BA Interactive Media Production (1st)