Career Stories

A career is not a straight line and skills can be gained in unexpected places.
Take inspiration from these stories of how people got where they are and where they may go next.

Dominic Southgate

Founder and Managing Director of a Design Consultancy Boxclever

What is your current role? Founder of a Design Consultancy specialising in professional and industrial products. Boxclever was founded in 2002 and has grown to a mix of industrial designers and mechanical engineers. My actual design work is now only around 20%, primarily my role is in client management, project scoping and quoting, Mentoring of junior and middleweight designers, finance, strategy, running the ‘business’. Tell us about your career journey to date? I was hired within three months of leaving NCAD Industrial Design in 1993 as a modelmaker. Product/Industrial Design was very different, there were few jobs in consultancy, and in-house usually meant you were one of a minimal design team in an Irish SME. Modelmaking was the usual route…

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