My Full Story

After graduating with a first class BSc (hons) in Computer Science specialising in AI, I first started my career in banking. While I met many incredible people at Lehman Brothers, I knew I was destined to work in the creative industries.

I joined the games industry in 2008 working on the phenomenally successful Moshi Monsters. Soon after I was included in MCV Develop’s 30-under-30.

I absolutely loved my time at Mind Candy and am still friends with many people from the team there. I even returned in a freelance capacity in 2025-6 to help them start up a new team! I feel incredibly lucky to have been involved in the growth of such a recognisable game and brand. Nothing quite beats seeing plushies and merch in your local shop or receiving fan art of the characters from young children.

Unfortunately we all know what happened to Flash (I still miss ActionScript), and so I decided to teach myself Unity and C# in 2011.

Not long after this, I was hired by Unity. We helped games studios worldwide ship amazing projects and I often visited studios to help get their games over the finish line. It was a great time and I learned so much from my colleagues and our clients; from small indies to AAA.

Wanting to focus more on studios closer to home, I founded my first company in 2012 making the leap to freelance game development & consultancy. During this time I worked with incredible studios such as Unity, MediaTonic (Epic), A Brave Plan, If You Can, The Mill and many more! I began speaking at conferences around the world and even spent a year living as a digital nomad.

Burnout 1

My first burnout happened during this time. I was working too hard and hadn’t taken a holiday in a long time (sound familiar?). Eventually my body forced me to stop and I was signed off work by the doctor. I was unable to continue freelance work for ~6 months. It was a scary time and I didn’t fully understand what burnout was or why it was happening. All I knew was that something big needed to change in the way I worked.

In 2016 I moved to Scotland and lived in Perthshire for a while. During this time I expanded my creative business to include my photography and art. I firmly believe people are multifaceted and I really enjoy having a number of creative outlets. This diversification in interests provided a boost to my freelance work, bringing amazing opportunities to teach creative workshops across Scotland, lead business courses for Cultural Enterprise Office, speak at events and exhibit at galleries such as the Royal Scottish Academy.

Unfortunately in 2019 I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, which was closely followed by the pandemic. These uncertain times were not easy and post-pandemic I decided to return to Edinburgh and the world of full-time employment. I was lucky enough to work with SixtoStart and Preloaded on fantastic projects using cutting edge technology such as AR, XR and Epic’s UEFN.

Burnout 2

Turns out if you work remotely, spend many hours a day in back-to-back meetings, and “can’t” find the time to take a break, grab a coffee or make lunch, your brain and body starts to protest. In a small team it’s often hard to delegate or ask for help because everyone seems so incredibly busy. I tried to power through (does that also sound familiar?) and then again my body forced me to stop. I was emotionally overwhelmed, absolutely exhausted and regularly getting sick. I was signed off from work by the doctor, but this time I recognised my own personal patterns with burnout. I again had to think about how to work in a way that works for me personally.

In 2023, I co-founded Vesper, growing the company to a team of 12 and securing 7-figure investments. In the two years at Vesper I wore many hats: Co-founder, CTO & CPO leading the production of the product and line managed a team of incredible people across development, art, audio and QA. I adored working with the team that we built and am lucky to call many of them good friends.

Burnout 3

In 2024, after 5 years of hospital checks I finally received the all-clear from cancer. News like that really changes your perspective on things and I decided to take a hard look at my career and the kind of life I wanted to live. I realised I was burning out again and unfortunately the underlying issues could not be solved. And so I decided to step away from Vesper.

Knowing more about myself and how I need to work, I founded my own company, Goth Boss Studios in 2025. Since then I’ve made it a priority to listen to my early warning signs of burnout and since then, my mental health, stress and happiness are the best they’ve ever been.

Through Goth Boss Studios I offer executive coaching and strategic advisory to support other leaders and founders who also struggle with burnout, stress and to help them find sustainable success. My experience as a founder, CTO & CPO means I can also wear the business hat when needed because founders and leaders often need both sides - the business mindset, and the people-caring one.

At 41 I was diagnosed with ADHD and am currently waiting for my AuDHD diagnosis. The diagnosis taught me a lot about myself, why I’m so susceptible to burnout, and why it’s so important to work with your brain, not against it. Success isn’t sustainable when you’re constantly stressed or heavily masking.

My goal is to live a happy, successful life and help others do the same.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

“You don’t need to set yourself on fire to keep others warm” ~unknown source