Leslie Fountain

As Executive Director of Foolproof’s Experience Design Practice, I have the luxury of combining my passion for human-centred design and human performance with helping the world’s biggest brands transform their services and business’ culture to become customer-centric.

Within Foolproof, I convene, nurture and grow our global Studio consisting of Experience Strategy, Design, Delivery and Optimisation. I surround myself with talented people who challenge our thinking and push the art of the possible. If we want to attract the best talent in the world and design experiences that positively impact millions of people around the globe, we need to continuously improve and evolve.

Within projects I provide a strategic view to help clients create an attainable customer experience vision – turning it into a reality through minimum viable products and product roadmaps. This means taking a top down strategic view with bottom up, evidence-based design execution. My most recent work involves building a picture of the education ecosystem and the future of learning; creating the experience vision for commercial real estate and defining the MVP; and optimising digital experiences for FS and Tech companies.

My professional expertise and formal training, MSc Human Factors and MBA, includes experience in strategy and planning; formative and summative user research; stakeholder engagement; agile design methodologies; service design and business development. I’m particularly interested in the potential of technology to augment human capabilities, enabling society to take back control of our wellbeing, financial stability and planet.

Before joining Foolproof I was the Joint Managing Director at System Concepts where I helped to build their UX team and worked with clients such as Amadeus, Microsoft and the New York Stock Exchange, using insight to re-design their services – both digitally and physically.

I believe strongly in supporting and developing future design leaders, be it within Foolproof, our community or our clients. To this end, I’ve supported Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) shape their BSc in User Experience Design and BSc in Games Development, I’m a regular speaker at industry events, trainer and active supporter of design-relevant associations.

Outside of work I enjoy playing ice hockey (like a true Canadian), skiing, running, gardening and urban explorer. All that activity means I can also enjoy culinary and wine experiences in equal measures.