Luke Searson

Product and design leadership that turns operational complexity into products that actually make sense.

I build teams, systems, and practices that improve quality, speed and outcomes through experience metrics, experimentation, and a culture of discovery. Right now I'm Head of Product Design at IVC Evidensia, one of the world's leading veterinary groups, where we're turning technology from a back-office cost into what actually differentiates our care. I've grown the design practice from the ground up whilst shipping B2B and B2C experiences.

Before IVC, I was Founding Head of Product Design at Beacon, betting on tracking and analytics as the thing that took a supply-chain scale-up from seed through its Series B raise. Earlier, as Head of UX at Altus Group, I helped institutional investors move decades-old portfolio management to the cloud.

I thrive in complex environments that demand strong product, operational and systems thinking, and the same three patterns show up in my work…

Products that ship under audit, not in a sandbox. Clinical and data oversight at IVC, regulated payments & finance infrastructure at Derivco and Beacon

Regulated Environments

Modernising decades-old healthcare systems at IVC, and moving legacy portfolio management to collaborative cloud workflows at Altus

Operational Complexity

Localised products and distributed teams. Teams across London, Toronto, and Hyderabad at Altus, and scaling across the UK, Europe and Canada at IVC.

Multi-market

Products that ship under audit, not in a sandbox. Clinical and data oversight at IVC, regulated payments & finance infrastructure at Derivco and Beacon

Regulated Environments

Modernising decades-old healthcare systems at IVC, and moving legacy portfolio management to collaborative cloud workflows at Altus

Operational Complexity

Localised products and distributed teams. Teams across London, Toronto, and Hyderabad at Altus, and scaling across the UK, Europe and Canada at IVC.

Multi-market

Open to senior product and design leadership roles (Head of, Director or VP) where the remit spans strategy, discovery and delivery. Open to blended product, design and research mandates for the right team and ambition.

→ See selected case studies
→ Read more about where I’ve led
→ Or download my CV

Open to senior product and design leadership roles (Head of, Director or VP) where the remit spans strategy, discovery and delivery. Open to blended product, design and research mandates for the right team and ambition.

→ See selected case studies
→ Read more about where I’ve led
→ Or download my CV

Selected work

Where my work shaped product strategy and business outcomes.

Modernising medical note-taking to unlock our veterinary expertise at scale

Building a next-generation note-taking app to capture structured clinical data, abstract legacy practice management systems, and improve the consultation experience for 40,000+ clinicians.

  • ~4 million clinical notes captured in the first 12 months.

  • AI Speech-to-Text shipped with ~85% transcription accuracy, leading to 36% increase in notes completed within the appointment window.

  • Connected to best-in-class global patient-care frameworks, clinical pathways and recommended vet actions.

→ Read the full case study

One connected platform for every pet owner, across every market

Giving pet owners one place to manage their pet’s health, plans, payments and insurance. What looks like a simple pet-owner app is a multi-PMS, multi-market platform replacing fragmented legacy systems across every country IVC operates in.

  • Abstracts multiple practice-management systems into one platform, localised per market, with UK live and Canada following in 2026.

  • Growing 40% month-on-month since national UK rollout.

  • Becoming the home of Pet Health Plans as IVC’s clinics consolidate onto one platform over Summer 2026.

→ Case Study coming soon

Giving pet owners one place to manage their pet’s health, plans, payments and insurance. What looks like a simple pet-owner app is a multi-PMS, multi-market platform replacing fragmented legacy systems across every country IVC operates in.

  • Abstracts multiple practice-management systems into one platform, localised per market, with UK live and Canada following in 2026.

  • Growing 40% month-on-month since national UK rollout.

→ Case Study coming soon

Supply-chain visibility, built through the crisis

As founding designer, I helped take Beacon from Series A through B across the most disruptive period global supply chains have faced, leading the skunkworks bet (end-to-end PO-to-warehouse tracking) that became the company’s entire business.

  • Spearheaded the tracking product that outlasted the core freight-forwarding business and now Beacon’s sole platform, used by Fever-Tree, Tata and Tilda.

  • Designed the connective core: multi-carrier, multi-modal and supplier data in one view.

  • Onboarding in days, not the months legacy products require.

→ Case study coming soon

Growing the club through our leading pet health plans

Consolidating multiple fragmented subscriptions services under a single customer-facing proposition as a first step in IVC’s multi-year rebrand and repositioning strategy.

  • A new site which saw 197% increase in organic website traffic year on year.

  • Over 90,000 plans added in the UK in 2025; 6% client uptake lift

  • Premium (plus) tier adding ~3,000 plans per month

→ Read the full case study

Consolidating multiple fragmented subscriptions services under a single customer-facing proposition as a first step in IVC’s multi-year rebrand and repositioning strategy.

  • A new site which saw 197% increase in organic website traffic year on year.

  • Over 90,000 plans added in the UK in 2025; 6% client uptake lift

  • Premium (plus) tier adding ~3,000 plans per month

→ Read the full case study

Where I've led

15+ years in leadership roles

2022 — Present

IVC Evidensia - ivcevidensia.com

One of the world's largest veterinary groups, serving 40,000+ clinicians and millions of pet owners across the UK, Western Europe and Canada. I've nurtured and led the product design function through a multi-year, PE-backed digital transformation, partnering with executive leadership to make technology the differentiator in how we deliver expert care.

  • Scaled the practice from 4 to 17 full time roles, distributed across technology hubs in the UK, Sweden and Portugal, building hiring, craft and operating practices from the ground up.

  • Advocated for a technology-wide career framework and built the design discipline's pathways within it, growing leaders from within with promotions into Principal and Senior roles.

  • Set design strategy across the full estate (clinical tooling, customer-facing health plans, and the insurance and payments platforms beneath both) as a peer to Product and Engineering leadership.

  • Built the investment case for technology-led transformation and won executive backing — turning it into delivered proof inside a PE-owned, multi-market business.

→ Read my Leadership case study

2020 — 2022

Beacon - beacon.com

As Beacon's Series A round closed, I joined in a founding role reporting to the CEO, with a mandate to scale both the product and design function. Took Beacon from Series A to Series B through global supply-chain disruption, the launch of a regulated trade-finance product, and real-time multi-modal tracking and analytics.

  • Built and led a multidisciplinary team of 12 across product design, research and brand.

  • Led the skunkworks bet, real-time tracking and analytics, that outlasted the core freight-forwarding business and became Beacon's entire company.

  • Kept the business operating through global supply-chain disruption, tracking container flows from suppliers across East and South Asia into UK and European markets.

  • Shipped a regulated trade-finance product in six months, cutting KYC from days to hours.

2016 — 2019

Altus Group - altusgroup.com

Stepped from senior IC into Altus's first dedicated design leadership role, introducing design thinking into a multi-billion-dollar global real estate services firm.

  • Consolidated Altus's first design function, around 10–15 designers across London, Toronto and Hyderabad, through active offshoring and the merging of teams from acquired businesses.

  • Led the design of the legacy valuation suite's move to cloud, the early foundation of what's now ARGUS Intelligence, Altus's flagship platform.

  • Launched the firm's first SaaS product, a dealroom and acquisitions tool that replaced manual data transfers with live scenario modelling, simplifying portfolio analysis for investors managing $20B+ in assets.

2011 — 2016

Derivco - derivco.com

I was promoted into a player-coach role leading UI engineers, game designers, and 3D artists shipping mobile titles for iOS and Android. The role that taught me to lead through craft, not just process.

  • Led a tight five-person craft team across UI, game design and 3D art, shipping mobile titles hands-on as player-coach

  • Designed registration and payments infrastructure, localised per market, serving 1M+ monthly active players across 17 regulated markets and territories.

  • Shipped mobile titles in partnership with Universal Studios, including The Dark Knight, and Jurassic Park which won Global Gaming Innovation Award.

  • Built game pipelines and design systems across LibGDX, Unity and Unreal Engine.

In closing

What people I've worked with say…

What people I've worked with say about me…

Luke knows what good looks like, and is always looking for opportunities to improve our ways of working. He’s pragmatic too, reasonable about when to push vs. when we need to meet our customers where they’re at - he has built deep respect among his peers, direct reports, and cross-functional business leaders.

~ VP Product (manager)

(Luke) ...finds the balance between good and great products, doing things properly vs just getting something done or running small experiments. You've got a knack for picking which battles to fight and which are things you can just let go of or leave for another time.

~ Head of Product (peer)

(Luke) ...one of the strongest presenters in the company, especially in large forums, where your natural ability to communicate with clarity, confidence, and energy, makes complex topics feel accessible and gets people genuinely engaged, motivated and onboard. It might sound small, but it truly is something that I look up to and aspire to be!

~ Senior Product Designer (direct report)

What I'm looking for next?

I'm looking for senior product and design leadership (Head of, Director or VP) at businesses where product and design are already strategic functions, or have the ambition to become them! I'm motivated by working with teams that show care through craft: solving real problems without losing the small details, those frictionless moments where technology feels like magic.

Always seeking the sweet spot between purpose, people and practice.

How to get in touch?

If my role, experience and thinking resonate with you, I'd love to connect!

lukejohnsearson@gmail.com

linkedin.com/in/lukesearson