Learning Experience Designer · Nairobi, Kenya

Designing knowledge systems that work in the field

I build learning and knowledge operations infrastructure for organisations delivering real impact at scale: from operational SOPs and staff onboarding to technical curriculum and stakeholder-facing guides.

6+ Programmes shipped end-to-end
450+ Learners reached across programmes
50+ NPS across flagship programmes
Concurrent programme portfolios managed
Knowledge Operations SOP Design Curriculum Engineering Non-profit Programmes Adult Learning Field-Based Delivery Data-Informed Design

What drives
my work

I specialise in the space where knowledge capture meets learning design, helping organisations that operate at scale turn tacit expertise into structured, accessible assets that frontline staff can actually use.

My background spans technical curriculum engineering, corporate training for NGO partners, and operational documentation. I've designed for learners with variable digital access, tight resource constraints, and high operational stakes. Contexts where a poorly designed onboarding guide or an unclear SOP has real consequences.

I'm particularly drawn to organisations building knowledge infrastructure from the ground up, where there is an opportunity to design systems that will compound in value over time, not just produce one-off training events.

Services & Capabilities

01

Knowledge Operations Design

SOPs, playbooks, onboarding guides, and process documentation designed for operational clarity and consistent execution, not just compliance.

02

Curriculum & Learning Experience Design

Structured learning programmes grounded in adult learning principles, from needs analysis and sequencing through to assessment and iteration.

03

Video & Multimedia Learning Content

Learning scripts, storyboards, and video-based course design for field-based and asynchronous delivery contexts.

04

Programme Evaluation & Insights

Turning learner feedback and performance data into clear insights that improve programme quality and support continuous improvement.

05

Stakeholder-Facing Knowledge Products

Guides, resource hubs, and Centre of Excellence content designed for external partners, communities, and institutional stakeholders.

06

Learning Systems & Quality Assurance

QA frameworks, delivery checklists, and standard operating structures that make programmes consistent, scalable, and auditable.

Case Studies

My design process

01 / DISCOVER

Needs & Context Analysis

Understand the learner population, operational environment, resource constraints, and success metrics before touching a design tool. What does good look like for the people who will use this?

02 / DESIGN

Structure & Sequence

Translate needs into architecture: learning outcomes, knowledge flows, SOP logic, or content scaffolding. Every design decision has a pedagogical or operational rationale.

03 / DEVELOP

Build & Validate

Produce the artefact (curriculum, guide, video script, playbook) and validate it with instructors, subject matter experts, or pilot users before full deployment.

04 / SCALE

Document, Enable, Iterate

Capture delivery standards, build facilitator resources, and establish feedback loops so the programme or system improves over time without starting from scratch.

In their words

"Stella is one of the most consistent people in the team. She goes above and beyond and produces quality work for both B2B clients and B2C products. The Foundations of Software Engineering programme, which she designed, collected feedback on, and iterated, is a standout piece of work."

Head of Product EdTech Company

"Stella's contributions to the Digital Literacy programme were marked by continued excellence. Her consistent efforts contributed to the programme receiving excellent stakeholder feedback, which led to the contract being both renewed and expanded, a significant achievement that speaks to her ability to deliver and maintain strong partner relationships."

Director of Corporate Training EdTech Company

"Stella combines thoughtful learning design with strong operational awareness. She understands how to balance pedagogy, stakeholder needs, and real-world constraints. Her work significantly improved the structure, quality, and scalability of our learning initiatives."

Director of Product EdTech Company

Experience & Education

May 2024 – Present

Curriculum Engineer & Product Owner

Moringa School · Nairobi, Kenya

Lead curriculum engineering and product ownership across Data Science, Data Analytics, High School Bootcamp, and corporate training programmes. Design SOPs, pacing guides, QA frameworks, and facilitator resources. Manage 3+ concurrent programme portfolios. Shipped curriculum for 450+ learners; achieved 50+ NPS across flagship programmes.

Jan 2024 – Apr 2024

Curriculum Engineer (Intern)

AfterWork · Nairobi, Kenya

Designed and standardised training materials for data courses, creating facilitator guides that established a delivery benchmark for future instructors. Facilitated community workshops using adult learning principles; achieved 9.3/10 satisfaction across sessions.

Dec 2017 – Dec 2019

Assistant English Instructor

LBE Japan

Facilitated cross-cultural learning for 35+ students across varied proficiency levels. Designed lesson plans aligned with language benchmarks; 80% of students met their target goals by programme end.

Apr 2026 – Ongoing

Product Management

Zindua School · Nairobi, Kenya

Structured product thinking including stakeholder mapping, programme lifecycle management, and prioritisation frameworks, applied directly to curriculum product ownership at Moringa.

2026 – Ongoing

Postgraduate Diploma in Learning Design & Technology

Open University of Kenya (OUK)

Advanced study in instructional design, digital pedagogy, e-learning development, and educational research, applied directly to curriculum engineering practice.

Let's build something that matters

I'm particularly interested in roles and collaborations where knowledge systems, operational learning, and mission-driven impact converge. If that sounds like your organisation, I'd welcome a conversation.

Client Work · NGO Partner Programme · 2024

Digital Literacy Programme for Underserved High School Learners

A foundational technology programme designed for high school students with variable device access, minimal prior digital exposure, and limited prior technical familiarity, delivered in partnership with an Italian NGO. Programme success led to multi-year contract renewal and expanded client investment.

Client Italian NGO (anonymised per NDA)
Learner Population Underserved high school students, Nairobi
Delivery Constraints Variable device access, limited connectivity, mixed prior exposure
Outcome Multi-year contract renewal; expanded programme scope

The Challenge

Underserved high school learners in this programme faced layered barriers that most curriculum designs do not account for: limited or no access to personal devices outside school, variable connectivity, low confidence with digital tools, and curricula historically designed for learners with far more prior exposure.

The NGO's goal was not just to deliver a technology programme. It was to build something that would increase digital confidence, open pathways to STEM careers, and be deliverable consistently at low marginal cost. The curriculum needed to be replicable across cohorts without requiring highly specialised facilitators.

Resource constraints I designed around

  • Shared devices: activities could not assume individual device ownership
  • Connectivity could not be relied upon for core learning activities
  • Facilitators had varying technical backgrounds, so the curriculum needed to carry the pedagogy, not just the instructor
  • Assessment had to be practical and low-barrier, not exam-dependent

Design Approach

Starting with the learner, not the content

Before designing a single lesson, I mapped what "success" looked like through the learner's eyes: increased confidence using digital tools, understanding of what a career in technology could involve, and at least one tangible thing they had built. Content sequencing followed from that definition, not from a standard technology syllabus.

Progressive scaffolding for mixed-prior-knowledge groups

With learners at widely varying starting points in the same room, rigid linear progression breaks down quickly. I designed modular activities with clear extension paths, so a learner who completed the core task quickly could extend into a challenge, while learners who needed more time were not left behind or made to feel that way.

Making concepts stick through visible outcomes

Abstract programming concepts are particularly hard to retain when they have no immediate visible application. Every concept introduced in this programme was paired with a small project or visible output within the same session, so learners could see what their code did before moving on.

Impact

Multi-year Contract renewal: programme quality drove expanded client investment
High Stakeholder satisfaction scores across first and second cohorts
Scalable Curriculum replicable across cohorts without redesign
"Stella's contributions to the Digital Literacy programme were marked by continued excellence. Her efforts contributed to the programme receiving excellent feedback from stakeholders, which led to the contract being both renewed and expanded, a significant achievement that speaks to the quality of her work and her ability to maintain strong partner relationships." Director of Corporate Training, EdTech Company

What I Would Do Differently

  • Build a more structured peer-learning mechanism into early sessions, as learners with more exposure were natural mentors, and that resource was underleveraged
  • Develop an offline-first version of the core activities earlier, rather than adapting reactively when connectivity failed
  • Create a lightweight facilitator guide that captured the specific decisions and improvisations that made early sessions successful, so that knowledge was not lost between cohorts

That last point, capturing the tacit knowledge that makes programmes work and making it accessible to future facilitators, is a design priority I carry into every engagement: the difference between a programme and a system.

Client Work · Curriculum Engineering · 2024–2025

Foundations of Software Engineering: Curriculum Architecture & Iteration

End-to-end curriculum engineering for a beginner technical programme at a Kenyan edtech school. Two full iteration cycles informed by learner performance data and instructor feedback. Recognised internally as a standout piece of programme design.

Organisation Moringa School, Nairobi (anonymised per NDA)
Learner Population Absolute beginners; career switchers entering tech
Programme Duration 5-week intensive modular programme
My Role Sole curriculum engineer; design, build, and two iteration cycles

The Problem

Beginner software engineering programmes fail at a predictable set of moments. Week one, when cognitive load is highest and the tooling environment is an obstacle before the learning has even begun. And again in the middle of the programme, when learners have enough knowledge to feel lost but not enough to debug their own confusion.

The existing programme had high early dropout and feedback indicating learners felt "thrown in at the deep end." My brief was to redesign the curriculum architecture to reduce that early failure pattern without simplifying the programme to the point of being unrepresentative of what real software engineering involves.

Curriculum Architecture Decisions

Week 1 as a confidence-building investment, not a content sprint

The first week is redesigned to be narrower in content scope and much richer in environment setup support, conceptual framing, and low-stakes practice. Learners who spend Week 1 feeling competent are statistically more likely to persist through Week 3 difficulty spikes, a pattern documented in self-determination theory and confirmed by our own cohort data.

Separating "how to write code" from "why this works"

Beginners learn syntax fastest when it is introduced alongside a clear mental model of what is happening, not as an abstract rule to memorise. Every new concept in this curriculum is introduced with an analogy or visual before the first line of code is written.

Assessment that produces data, not just grades

Weekly hands-on labs were designed as diagnostic instruments, not just evaluative ones. The rubric for each lab explicitly mapped errors to likely misconceptions, so facilitators could use assessment results to adjust pacing and support, not just to assign marks.

Iteration: From Version 1 to Version 2

After the first cohort completed the programme, I ran a structured feedback analysis: interview data from instructors, completion rates by week, and learner self-assessment scores. Three clear patterns emerged:

  • Learners reported Week 4 (asynchronous concepts) as the hardest drop-off point: the concept was introduced too abstractly before a practical application
  • Facilitators were improvising analogies that weren't in the curriculum materials, and those needed to be captured and standardised
  • The capstone project rubric was clear on what to submit but unclear on how decisions would be evaluated, creating anxiety rather than reducing it

Version 2 restructured Week 4 to lead with a practical problem, added a facilitator guide with the analogies instructors had found most effective, and revised the capstone rubric to include example "strong response" indicators for each criterion.

↑ 23% Improvement in Week 4 completion rate (V1 vs V2)
Iteration cycles completed and documented
Facilitator improvisation; reduced delivery variance across instructors
"Stella is one of the most consistent people in the team. She goes above and beyond in her work and produces quality work for both B2B clients and B2C products. One of the standout pieces of work is the Foundations of Software Engineering programme which she designed, but also collected and actioned feedback for the second iteration." Head of Product, EdTech Company

What I Learned

The most valuable design insight from this project was about facilitator knowledge. A significant portion of what makes a curriculum work lives not in the written materials but in the judgment calls instructors make in the room: which analogy to use, when to slow down, how to respond when a learner is stuck. That knowledge is fragile. It walks out the door when an instructor leaves and does not transfer to new cohorts automatically.

Building the facilitator guide as a living document, one explicitly designed to capture and update those judgment calls, is now a standard part of how I approach curriculum engineering. It is a knowledge operations problem as much as a learning design problem.

Community Project / Stakeholder Operations · 2024

Dining in the Dark: Event Operations Tracker and Stakeholder SOP

A high-profile fundraising event run by Global Shapers Nairobi required tight coordination across sponsors, venue partners, caterers, volunteers, and media. I designed the master operations tracker and the stakeholder SOP that kept delivery on track across a six-week run-up and a zero-margin event day.

Organisation Global Shapers Community, Nairobi Hub
Event Type Fundraising dinner / community experience event
My Role Operations design, master tracker, stakeholder SOP
Competencies Demonstrated Knowledge capture, project management, stakeholder coordination, SOP design

The Context

Dining in the Dark is a sensory dining experience where guests eat blindfolded, guided by visually impaired hosts. For Global Shapers Nairobi, the event served two purposes: raising funds for a community cause and building awareness of disability inclusion in public life. It required everything to work: the wrong meal served to the wrong guest in the wrong order in a pitch-dark room is not a minor inconvenience.

The coordination challenge was significant. We had external sponsors with deliverable commitments, a venue partner with specific setup requirements, a catering team who needed precise timelines, visually impaired facilitators who needed thorough orientation, media coverage to manage, and a volunteer team with varying experience. All of this needed to come together on a single evening with no real room for improvisation.

The Master Tracker

The core tool I built was a master event operations tracker that served as the single source of truth across the planning period. Rather than managing coordination through Slack threads and email chains, everything lived in one document that the full organising team could read and update.

What the tracker covered

  • All deliverables by workstream (venue, catering, sponsorship, volunteer management, media, guest experience) with owner, due date, and status
  • A dependency map showing which tasks blocked others, so delays were visible before they cascaded
  • A budget tracking tab linked to procurement timelines
  • A guest list and dietary requirements matrix, updated in real time as RSVPs came in
  • A day-of run sheet with timestamped cues for each team lead
Tracker Structure: Workstream Overview
DINING IN THE DARK — OPERATIONS TRACKER Global Shapers Nairobi Hub · 2024 WORKSTREAMS AND OWNERS ──────────────────────────────────────── Venue & Setup Lead: [Name] Status tracker tab: VENUE Catering Lead: [Name] Status tracker tab: FOOD Guest Experience Lead: [Name] Status tracker tab: GUESTS Sponsorship Lead: [Name] Status tracker tab: SPONSORS Volunteer Mgmt Lead: [Name] Status tracker tab: VOLUNTEERS Media & Comms Lead: [Name] Status tracker tab: MEDIA MASTER TIMELINE (extract) ──────────────────────────────────────── T-6 weeks Confirm venue booking + layout sign-off T-5 weeks Sponsor deliverables confirmed in writing T-4 weeks Catering brief finalised; dietary matrix seeded T-3 weeks Guest list closed; seating plan drafted T-2 weeks Volunteer briefing + run-through T-1 week Day-of packs prepared for all leads T-3 days Final dietary matrix to catering; no further changes T-1 day Venue setup inspection; tech check Day-of Run sheet (see below) governs all timing DAY-OF RUN SHEET (extract) ──────────────────────────────────────── 17:30 Volunteer team arrives; venue setup complete check 18:00 Guest arrival begins; welcome drinks + briefing 18:30 Blindfolds on; guests escorted to tables 18:35 Starter service begins (Course 1) 19:15 Course 2 service begins 20:00 Dessert + close; blindfolds removed 20:15 Media moment; group photo 20:30 Open floor; programme close LEAD CUES: each workstream lead has a printed cue card with their time points and escalation contact.

Why this structure worked

  • Single source of truth: No one was working from a stale version. Updates in the tracker were the official record.
  • Visibility for the whole team: Any organiser could see at a glance what was on track, what was at risk, and who owned what. That transparency reduced the number of check-in meetings needed.
  • Dependency mapping: The dietary matrix going to catering could not happen until the guest list was closed. Making that dependency explicit meant the guest-list deadline was treated seriously, not as a soft target.

The Stakeholder SOP

External partners (sponsors and the venue) needed a clear reference document that told them exactly what we needed from them, by when, in what format, and who to contact when things changed. A generic event brief was not sufficient. I designed a short SOP-style document for each external stakeholder that made their specific obligations explicit and gave them the escalation path if they ran into problems.

What the stakeholder SOP covered per partner

  • Their specific deliverables with hard deadlines
  • Format and delivery instructions for each item
  • What "confirmed" meant in each case and how they would know
  • A single named contact on our side for that workstream
  • What to do if a deliverable was going to be late or changed

This reduced the number of last-minute clarification calls significantly and meant that when a sponsor did need to change a deliverable close to the event, the escalation path was already known. No one was trying to find the right person to call at T-minus two days.

Outcome

On time Event delivered on schedule with no critical coordination failures
Multi-partner Sponsors, venue, caterers, media, and volunteers coordinated from one tracker
Reusable Tracker and SOP templates retained for future Hub events

What This Demonstrates

This project sits outside my formal L&D work but it is directly relevant to knowledge operations roles. The skills involved are the same: capturing tacit coordination knowledge into structured, usable documents; designing for a diverse stakeholder group with different information needs; making dependencies visible before they become problems; and producing tools that outlast the individual event and become institutional assets.

An operational SOP for a field supervisor and a stakeholder pack for an event sponsor are different documents for different audiences. The design thinking behind them is the same.