About

Hi, I'm Simon.

I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I started as a sound engineer and music producer, then moved into education: first as a lecturer and programme manager, then into learning design and learning operations.

Along the way, I discovered that my real skill is designing the systems that make quality repeatable. I'm drawn to messy situations where ownership is unclear, documentation is missing, and teams are drowning in reactive work. I find those problems energising because I know how to fix them.

Why I'm unusually effective

I sit at an uncommon intersection of skills.

I understand aesthetics and craft

My background in audio engineering and media production trained me to care about quality at a granular level. I notice when things feel off, and I have the vocabulary to say why.

I think in systems

I see patterns in chaos. When I walk into a struggling operation, I quickly find the two or three leverage points that will create the most improvement with the least disruption.

I lead through trust, not authority

I've rarely had formal authority over the people I've needed to influence. I've learned to build credibility through reliability, then use that trust to make changes stick.

Where I bring mastery

Operations systems

Capacity planning, traffic management, workflow design, tooling migrations, and the infrastructure that makes delivery predictable.

Consistent quality

QA systems, style guides, accessibility standards, and stage-gate processes that catch problems early and ship polished work.

Stakeholder trust

Rebuilding relationships across functions, aligning incentives, and turning adversarial dynamics into collaborative ones.

How I work

These principles guide how I approach operations challenges.

Frictionless systems

I design workflows that reduce cognitive load so teams can focus on meaningful work, not process overhead.

Clarity of ownership

When everyone knows who decides what, systems stop drifting and people start moving.

Measure twice, cut once

Quality gates and stage-gate reviews prevent rework. Getting it right the first time is faster than fixing it later.

Stakeholder trust

I build credibility through reliability. Consistent delivery earns the latitude to make bigger changes.

Values

Craft: I care about the details. Beautiful systems are often the most functional ones.
Clarity: Ambiguity creates friction. I make ownership and expectations explicit.
Empathy: Operations serves people. I design for real humans with real constraints.
Accountability: I absorb ambiguity so others don't have to. When I commit, I deliver.

Beyond work

I like making things, I care about craft, and I enjoy bringing people together around shared experiences.

Photography

I photograph weddings and portraits, which mostly means paying close attention to people.

See my photography

Writing

I write stories and adventures, mostly for the games I run. Some of the stories are published on The Forge and the Fable.

Read the stories

The table

I've run tabletop roleplaying games for years. These days I run them online, as a professional game master.

Play at my table

Through my lens

Pull up a chair.

Want to talk about work, a game, or something you're building? I'd love to hear from you.

Email me LinkedIn GitHub