London, October 13th, 2021

Foolproof is an experience design company and part of Zensar, a global technology company.

It specializes in end-to-end digital product and service design for global brands, working with a team in the UK, India, Singapore and South Africa. Its approach to design is based on the principles of collaboration, iteration and measurement. 

George Ioannou is the Global Managing Partner at Foolproof, based in London. In an interview with TIA, he went through this personal journey and his current role at the agency.

He also highlighted the many differential characteristics of Foolproof and explained how it’s culture is maintained across all the offices around the world.

To kick things off, what’s one must-do experience in London in your opinion?

That’s a tricky question, as my answer would change dependent on who I’m speaking with (whether first time visitor from abroad, or from elsewhere in the UK etc) but for me, London is all about the rich diversity of people, food and culture. Therefore, it would have to be the Museum trilogy. I love to visit South Kensington and hop from V&A to The Natural History Museum then the Science Museum all in one day.

Tell us about your personal journey. How did you find yourself being the Managing Partner at Foolproof?

I started off wanting to be an architect, but quickly discovered I didn’t like drawing buildings. Then work experience week at school came around, and I was accepted at a graphic design studio where I worked on the original Thunderbird’s Christmas crackers, and discovered my love of making things by hand. When I saw the crackers for sale in supermarkets, I was hooked and knew I wanted to have my work seen and used by the public. Education-wise, I did a BTEC in Graphic Design at Kingston College, then went straight into work at a small usability agency in Richmond called JSC (Julia Schofield Consultants) where I cut my teeth on all things usability and accessibility, as well as tools like Macromedia and Adobe. I then led creative at a technical agency Snow Valley (eventually becoming an Oracle Company) which went down an ecommerce route and, at one point, became the backbone of many retailers. From there onward, my career narrative was bringing either Design and Marketing capabilities or transformational opportunities into IT companies such as HCL, Wipro and now Foolproof (A Zensar Company). I came to Foolproof for the opportunity to lead a studio which has amazing talent that I had always admired from the outside, with the aim of scaling our brand and client base internationally. 

How do you feel Foolproof separates itself in a crowded sector, and how do you align business decisions with your values every day?

Completely correct, it is a crowded sector – and an area full of opportunity to do our own thing. We are a truly human-centric design studio, with uncovering and serving both user and business needs our main priority. We are brutally honest with our clients on their digital experience and that’s why we attract amazing talent and fantastic clients. As an experience agency with our parent Zensar (an RPG company) we build out and operate the experiences we design across all verticals and geographies. Business decisions are made on whether we can add true value, and whether the nature of work excites and supports the ambitions of our people. We also no longer look for projects, instead long-term partnerships.

How can leadership create and then cultivate an inclusive workplace? 

We try to be as representative as possible, and appoint figureheads specialised in forging close community, and feedback loops so our people feel supported and able to grow while there here with us. This is reinforced by quarterly “away days” where we all get together to think about our sole purpose as both a business and individuals as part of a broader mission – to improve the lives of people all over the world through great design. We can only achieve this with a diverse range of voices in the business. 

We are living through the most important pandemic in recent world history. Which are the main changes you saw or put in practice regarding talent motivation and development?

We transitioned to Zoom, and introduced regular team catch ups to ensure no one felt alienated while adapting to distributed ways of working. Each Tuesday, we still meet for a “cuppa” in the mornings, while each Friday we have cake in the afternoon to wind down. This is a long-standing tradition that had happened in person for many years, and thankfully we were able to keep it going – and it is something we all looked forward to each week. We also made 1:1s mandatory and moved our team meeting to full remote, ensuring we still celebrated good news stories, work anniversaries etc.

Foolproof has over 200 employees, how do you make sure that the agency culture is present along with the whole team?

Culture is the team! It’s our people, therefore ever evolving as we grow and nurture relationships with one another. We spend lots of time onboarding and networking to provide our people the chance to know their colleagues beyond the professional walls. We believe this strengthens internal ties and helps us develop a shared sense of community and therefore identity. Each of the studios around the world e.g. Europe, APAC, South Africa and India have their own take on the culture, and that’s what makes us strong – the rich array of people we are proud to call Foolproofers. 

What is some recent work from the agency that you’re most proud of?

The work we did with One Shot Immersive is pretty special and just made the BIMA10! (https://bima.co.uk/bima10-winner-foolproof-one-shot-immersive-by-foolproof/). We validated their training experience which provides essential support to medics on the frontline in some of the world’s most austere environments. This is to support local hospitals and safeguard resources in Yemen where there are four surgeons for every million people, and importantly – save lives. This technology is quickly gaining international traction with the experience heading to Somali for further testing and development in the near future. We feel so honored to have played our part in making this happen.

When looking at the technological landscape today, what makes you think “wow”? 

I’m honestly blown away by artificial intelligence; where it came from, what it is now and its many different use cases. 

What do you think is currently the biggest issue facing the digital and tech industry in London? 

The talent market is booming around the world. To alleviate the associated pressures and set up for the future, we (businesses) need to enhance remote working policies and environments while thinking harder about what a distributed culture is. That means rethinking in-person and online interaction and communication as well as what provides value and where. Along the same lines, we need to hire talent which represents the diversity of the world we’re designing for, a big challenge is evolving hiring practices to better capture this and aligning behind causes that promote it. 

The market will have to contend with the speed of internal change within organisations too and work hard to nurture the breadth of skills required of digital-first businesses. The message from the Economic Forum (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/top-10-work-skills-of-tomorrow-how-long-it-takes-to-learn-them/) was very clear; organisations will need to prepare for mass reskilling by 2025 due to the continuous adoption of emerging technologies and processes. 

Is there a question you wish people would ask you more often? 

Can I just do this?

If you could travel back in time and give yourself one piece of career advice, what would it be? 

I would have taken bigger risks, as an example: I had great opportunities through work, but never wanted to relocate internationally.

Can you name a fun-fact people would be surprised to learn about you? 

Every now and again, when I take my son to the skate park, I try to drop in with his skateboard and have a few attempts at the tricks I used to be able to do.

Thanks George!

Learn more about  Foolproof

Follow George on social media:

LinkedIn

Twitter

Follow Foolproof on social media:

Twitter
LinkedIn

COVID-19culturemanagement