/ Protu

Hiring & Organisational Intelligence Platform for Enterprises

2017 - 2025 | Startup · HRTech · AI

Overview

Overview

Protu is a machine learning–powered platform I founded to help organisations redesign hiring and team building around behaviour, culture, and real human data. We built a scalable intelligence engine that delivered actionable insights to over 25 companies - including 6 enterprise clients - and supported more than 5,000 users. I led the product vision, UX development, and operational scaling, raising £500K in seed funding and assembling a 10-person cross-functional team across design, engineering, and research.

The Challenge

The Challenge

Hiring is fundamentally broken - often biased, slow, and disconnected from how people actually contribute. Most HR tools focus on keywords or credentials, missing the nuance of collaboration, culture, and real-world behaviour.

The challenge was to rethink this from the ground up. A platform that could capture behavioural signals and turn them into usable intelligence. The challenge was twofold - create an ML system capable of surfacing cultural and influence fit and potential, but build for longevity, and design an experience that would drive clarity, not complexity, for both companies and candidates.

My Role & Focus

My Role & Focus

I led Protu from concept to scale, shaping the product, growing the team, and driving strategic delivery across domains.

  • Product Strategy: Defined the platform vision, aligning organisational insight with hiring models.

  • System Architecture: Led UX design, data architecture, and ML model structure to support team intelligence.

  • Operational Leadership: Recruited a 10-person team, set team principles, and scaled through early funding and release cycles.

  • Delivery Execution: Oversaw end-to-end feature delivery, from research to beta testing > across 5000+ users and clients.

  • Platform Impact: Ensured usability, explainability, and consistency in how Protu supported hiring, onboarding, and organisational performance.

Process & Execution

Process & Execution

Our approach was lean but rigorous - designed to balance early-stage speed with enterprise-grade clarity and impact.

  • Discovery & Research: Worked with HR teams, researchers, and hiring managers to map real-world breakdowns from misaligned roles to poor team dynamics, to team dynamics.

  • UX & System Design: Created a modular, WCAG-compliant design system that could flex across different companies and roles while delivering consistent insight.

  • ML & Intelligence Layer: Built domain-specific scoring and language models to reveal behavioural patterns. Prioritised transparency and trust over black-box results.

  • Operational Delivery: Introduced internal product rituals and sprint cycles aligned to client expectations - helping us scale without compromising velocity.

  • B2C Feedback Loop: Developed a candidate-facing assistant to validate our models and improve platform intelligence through lived experience.

  • Discovery & Research: Worked with HR teams, researchers, and hiring managers to map real-world breakdowns from misaligned roles to poor team dynamics, to team dynamics.

  • UX & System Design: Created a modular, WCAG-compliant design system that could flex across different companies and roles while delivering consistent insight.

  • ML & Intelligence Layer: Built domain-specific scoring and language models to reveal behavioural patterns. Prioritised transparency and trust over black-box results.

  • Operational Delivery: Introduced internal product rituals and sprint cycles aligned to client expectations — helping us scale without compromising velocity.

  • B2C Feedback Loop: Developed a candidate-facing assistant to validate our models and improve platform intelligence through lived experience.

  • Discovery & Research: Worked with HR teams, researchers, and hiring managers to map real-world breakdowns from misaligned roles to poor team dynamics, to team dynamics.

  • UX & System Design: Created a modular, WCAG-compliant design system that could flex across different companies and roles while delivering consistent insight.

  • ML & Intelligence Layer: Built domain-specific scoring and language models to reveal behavioural patterns. Prioritised transparency and trust over black-box results.

  • Operational Delivery: Introduced internal product rituals and sprint cycles aligned to client expectations — helping us scale without compromising velocity.

  • B2C Feedback Loop: Developed a candidate-facing assistant to validate our models and improve platform intelligence through lived experience.

  • Discovery & Research: Worked with HR teams, researchers, and hiring managers to map real-world breakdowns from misaligned roles to poor team dynamics, to team dynamics.

  • UX & System Design: Created a modular, WCAG-compliant design system that could flex across different companies and roles while delivering consistent insight.

  • ML & Intelligence Layer: Built domain-specific scoring and language models to reveal behavioural patterns. Prioritised transparency and trust over black-box results.

  • Operational Delivery: Introduced internal product rituals and sprint cycles aligned to client expectations - helping us scale without compromising velocity.

  • B2C Feedback Loop: Developed a candidate-facing assistant to validate our models and improve platform intelligence through lived experience.

Approach

Approach

Defined hiring problem Framed strategic solution Built concept for AI assistant Applied research Led ML development Built platform & design system Ran customer feedback loops Developed product roadmaps
Integrated CRM

Defined hiring problem Framed strategic solution Built concept for AI assistant Applied research Led ML development Built platform & design system Ran customer feedback loops Developed product roadmaps Integrated CRM

Defined hiring problem Framed strategic solution Built concept for AI assistant Applied research Led ML development Built platform & design system Ran customer feedback loops Developed product roadmaps Integrated CRM

Outcome & Impact

Outcome & Impact

Deployed across 25+ companies, including 6 enterprise clients, and used by 5000+ candidates.

Helped HR, leadership, and teams improve alignment, onboarding, and team cohesion through live insight delivery.

Turned behavioural signals into organisational intelligence — without relying on black-box AI.

Scaled and led a cross-functional team of 10. Closed a £500K Seed round to accelerate platform development.

Delivered a WCAG-compliant, system-driven product suite spanning B2B and B2C hiring flows.

Proved a bottom-up approach to hiring: insight-led, adaptable, and designed for how people actually work.

Reflections

Reflections

Leading Protu taught me how to operate at the intersection of vision and execution. I learned how to shape complex systems from scratch, manage multi-disciplinary teams, and navigate the realities of building ML-backed tools with human stakes. It reinforced my belief that product strategy is only as strong as its systems - and that meaningful progress comes from grounded insight, fast iteration, principled leadership and getting stuck in.

Tools & Methods

Tools & Methods

Some of the tools and methods I relied on to design and deliver for this role

Figma – Used for product design and system scalability. Built protu's product catalogue with custom design system for handoff across design and engineering.

Miro – To collaborate and align with stakeholders on research, features, quarterly planning and delivery goals.

Clearbit – For candidate and company data to support user segmentation, targeting, and GTM strategy across the platform.

GitHub – Structured product delivery through creating and managing tickets, user stories, and sprint planning. Tracked insights to align engineering, product and business goals.

Intercom – Ran customer comms flows for onboarding, feedback, and support - closing the loop between relations, feature interaction and delivery.

Next Project:

Aligning hardware, software, and user onboarding to drive SME sales.