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Garry BurnsContact

Experience

Fifteen years of practice and delivery

A senior service designer and human-centred strategist across luxury hospitality, telecommunications, finance, aviation, government and social impact.

15+
Years of experience
6
Industry Sectors
4
Global Regions
Jump to case studies
Human profile divided into service design, human-centred design, voice of customer, OKRs, transformation and HCD training

Contracting experience includes selected client engagements delivered through Essential Craft. Employment experience follows; selected engagements open into deeper case studies.

Contracting experience

May 2020 – Present

Essential Craft

Founder & Principal Consultant

Independent Service Design and CX Transformation practice delivering engagements across the UAE, GCC and internationally.

Selected client engagements

  1. 2024 – Present

    Kerzner International

    Service Design & Value Enablement Consultant

    Retained to connect luxury guest experiences to commercial outcomes across the One&Only, Atlantis and SIRO brand portfolio.

    • Developed a commercial value-enablement playbook that strengthened the operating model, clarified ownership and improved commercial prioritisation across brand, CRM, operations, data and finance.
    • Created lifecycle frameworks for portfolio-level guest relationship growth, moving beyond single-property conversion towards long-term share-of-life value.
    • Shaped an Experience & Innovation Management Office concept and a 3-year strategy connecting guest and employee experience to Board-level targets.
    Luxury hospitalityView case study
  2. Jan 2024 – Mar 2025

    Arthur D. Little (ADL)

    Senior Service Designer / CX Designer

    Engaged by ADL Middle East to guide a financial-services CX and digital-transformation assignment.

    • Supported ADGM's CR&M digitalisation project: customer lifecycle and ecosystem mapping, international benchmarking, and prioritised initiatives across Salesforce optimisation, knowledge-base governance, customer-facing AI service channels and internal GenAI support.
    Financial servicesView case study
  3. 2024 – 2025

    stc, via Arthur D. Little

    CX Workshop Facilitator / Service Designer

    Co-designed and facilitated a standalone Customer Experience learning programme for stc senior leaders.

    • Ran workshops covering customer-centricity, persona building, journey mapping, employee empowerment, CX metrics, data-driven personalisation, omnichannel service and AI-enabled support.
    • Kept this engagement focused on leadership capability and practical CX methods; it was not part of the Belong or Telstra work.
    Telecoms
  4. 2024 – 2025

    Telekom Srbija, via Arthur D. Little

    CX Strategy Facilitator / Service Designer

    Developed and presented a standalone Value of CX leadership narrative for Telekom Srbija.

    • Connected customer experience to organic growth, market resilience, cost efficiency and the practical ingredients of a customer-centric culture.
    • Introduced total-experience thinking as a leadership framework for considering customer and employee outcomes together.
    Telecoms
  5. Feb 2023 – Jan 2024

    XWORX Design Services

    Principal Designer

    Hired to build XWORX's service design capability and delivery quality, and grow the team behind it.

    • Led design, innovation and service design engagements across government, aviation, energy and mobility, developing innovation roadmaps and coaching design teams.
    • Selected work: ADQ design thinking training (100+ participants), TAQA COP28 innovation bootcamp, Dubai Future Foundation telecoms foresight, Etihad Airways airport journey mapping, ADNEC executive coaching.
    GovernmentAviationEnergy
  6. Feb 2022 – Feb 2023

    Telstra, via Thought Collaborative

    Senior Service Designer

    Contracted as a Senior Service Designer across two distinct Telstra engagements: 5G Home Internet and the B2B API Storefront.

    • 5G Home Internet: conducted customer research and service-record audits, mapped journeys and touchpoints, and brought customer evidence into product and architecture decisions.
    • B2B API Storefront: mapped the customer and developer experience, clarified data-sharing needs and aligned product, commercial and technical stakeholders.
    Telecoms
  7. May 2021 – Feb 2022

    Vinnies Australia

    Senior Service Designer

    Engaged to bring structure and evidence-based prioritisation to a distributed, resource-constrained digital function.

    • Created personas, feature blueprints, journey maps and prioritisation frameworks to help digital channels extend mission impact by reaching previously under-represented social groups.
    • Rallied geographically distributed leadership around a metric-driven prioritisation approach, focusing limited resources on stronger mission outcomes and creating a unified digital roadmap.
    Social impact
  8. 2015 – Present

    Audacity Wines

    Experience Design Consultant

    Long-running advisory relationship shaping the end-to-end customer and visitor experience for a boutique wine producer.

    • Designed brand and customer experience across digital, direct-to-consumer and on-site visitor touchpoints, advising on positioning and proposition as the business grew from launch to established operation at one digital and two physical storefronts.
    Consumer / DTC

Employment experience

  1. Nov 2017 – Apr 2021

    Belong

    Digital Product Owner and UX Chapter Lead

    Led Belong's digital product and UX practice, delivering a redesigned front-end stack and building a distributed UX chapter across business teams.

    • Owned the end-to-end redesign of Belong's front-end stack, including a design system and headless CMS foundation capable of supporting personalisation.
    • Built and led a distributed UX chapter across other business teams, embedding customer evidence and experience-design practice into product, architecture and commercial decisions.
    • Increased sales, reduced call volumes and made offers and campaigns 10× faster to market.
    • Developed OKRs, personas, journey maps, service blueprints and experience principles to connect customer value to delivery priorities.
  2. Sep 2017 – Feb 2019

    Nomura Research Institute (NRI)

    Service Designer, Consultant

    Engaged to bring service design and customer research capabilities into enterprise technology delivery (formerly SMS Management & Technology).

    • Led customer research, stakeholder engagement, facilitation, service strategy and agile product ownership across enterprise technology contexts.
    • Developed a connected-car strategy for a global automotive manufacturer and established a Customer Lab. Clients included Belong, Honda and the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority.
    TelecomsAutomotiveInsurance

Earlier career

2002 – 2021
Push...Design · Freelance Service / CX / UX Designer (concurrent practice)
2014 – 2016
lyPa · Experience Product Owner
2012 – 2014
Self-employed · Designer / Builder
2010 – 2012
EPIK Korea · TEFL English Teacher
2008 – 2010
NFU Mutual · Business Analyst and Sales
2006 – 2008
Insight Innovations · Designer and Photographer
2004 – 2008
HBOS · Service Consultant
2001 – 2003
Medea International · Graphic Design Intern

Education & teaching

2004 – 2008
University of Dundee
BSc Product / Service Design
2019
RMIT University
Invited Service Design Mentor, RMIT Online

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