danielcollings
Photograph of Daniel Collings

Strategic brand, design & experience leadership

Hi, I’m Daniel - a strategic design consultant and commercially-minded leader with 15+ years' experience helping businesses solve complex customer experience and brand challenges.

I work with organisations to shape brand experiences that build trust, drive loyalty, and deliver measurable results - helping communicate the right thing, to the right people, in the right way.

Whether I’m leading a brand transformation project, facilitating a leadership workshop, or building high-performing creative teams, I bring calm, collaborative direction and the drive to make a genuine difference.

Today, I work flexibly as a consultant, collaborator, and fractional leader - helping teams establish and apply strategy to solve real-world challenges.

Let's connect Email or message me

What I do

Senior leadership

Supporting businesses and agencies with strategy, clarity, and leadership through the lens of brand and customer experience.

Show capability list
  • Providing senior leadership and strategic clarity across agencies, start-ups, and scale-ups
  • Aligning brand and customer experience to strategic business objectives
  • Supporting leadership teams to make confident, customer-focused decisions
  • Guiding internal change, transformation, and operational improvement
  • Mentoring creative, product, and marketing teams to strengthen capability and efficiency

Brand + experience strategy

Building brands and digital journeys that connect, resonate and deliver results.

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  • Designing digital experiences that turn engagement into action
  • Segmenting audiences and optimising customer journeys to drive conversion
  • Shaping design direction and visual strategy to strengthen brand impact
  • Driving collaboration across design, development, content, and marketing teams
  • Building brand strategies that connect emotionally, deliver commercially, and evolve with business needs

Workshops + facilitation

Unlocking insights, aligning teams, and turning ideas into action.

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  • Leading strategic workshops for founders, executives, and leadership teams
  • Aligning stakeholders around shared goals and business objectives
  • Presenting strategy and vision to boards and C-suite audiences
  • Educating teams on the commercial value of brand, design, and experience
  • Guest speaking, mentoring, and delivering practical internal training sessions

DesignOps, systems + scalability

Optimising processes and systems to help creative teams integrate, operate and grow.

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  • Designing scalable processes that improve creative efficiency and collaboration
  • Clarifying roles and responsibilities through effective RACI modelling
  • Leading design system strategy and operational integration
  • Bridging design, UX, product, and engineering teams
  • Structuring creative teams for sustainable growth and operational resilience

Team growth + leadership

Coaching leaders and teams to grow culture, capability, wellbeing, and retention.

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  • Coaching leaders and teams to unlock confidence and capability
  • Building people-first cultures that drive retention and performance
  • Developing career growth frameworks aligned to business needs
  • Advising on team structure, hiring, and scaling for long-term success
  • Supporting career transitions and strengthening transferable skills

Who I’ve worked with

I’ve partnered with over 150 businesses, from ambitious start-ups to global enterprises, helping them strengthen their brand, optimise digital experiences, and drive real-world impact across B2B and B2C markets.

ABB logo
Boeing logo
Brother logo
Castrol logo
Confused logo
Danfoss logo
Duracell logo
Elsevier logo
Elanco logo
Federal Reserve logo
HSBC logo
Lexmark logo
Rolls-Royce logo
MSCI logo
Marshalls
Steripack logo
Thatchers logo
TfGM logo
Trelleborg logo
Uswitch logo

My approach

Across agency and in-house tech roles, I've developed a personal approach to leadership, strategy, and problem-solving - rooted in good listening, professional-curiosity, and experience in asking the right questions to drive real change.

I lead with calm energy, emotional intelligence, and a genuine drive to make things better — for people, businesses, and audiences.

Whether leading a high-stakes workshop or mentoring individuals, I work to ensure teams not only understand the context of what we’re doing, but why it matters.

I embrace AI-enabled workflows to accelerate research, simplify complexity, and unlock new ways to think, collaborate, and create — helping teams move smarter.

Today, I collaborate flexibly as a consultant, partner, and fractional leader — helping businesses achieve OKRs and strategic objectives through optimised brand, product and customer experience.

Let’s connect

I'm available from mid-2025 for strategic collaborations, flexible leadership roles, and projects where brand, design, and experience can drive measurable business impact.

If you're a business leader, agency, or team seeking someone to lead, influence, or elevate your brand and experience strategy, I'd love to start the conversation.

By email:

Social:

CV + Case studies

If you’re interested in working together and would like a deeper look at my experience, leadership roles, and project outcomes, feel free to get in touch.

Recent case studies:

  • Digital agency transformation
    [UK, 2024-2025]
  • Consumer brand transformation + identity
    [UK, 2024-2025]
  • High-volume consumer product design system
    [UK, 2024-2025]
  • B2B Enterprise global>local CX centralisation
    [US/Global, 2019-2021]
  • Building cross-functional teams and healthy cultures
    [Global, 2018-2025]