Alex Knox

Background

About Alex Knox

I am a product development expert and for the last 30 years I have worked at Dyson leading engineering teams to create award winning appliances across many product categories. This has helped fuel the company’s growth and increase revenue to £6.5bn. A passionate believer in the power of good design, I see it as an opportunity to solve a problem in a better way, distilling ideas into innovative and elegant solutions answering a need. Good design makes the user's experience a delight and can transform and disrupt in the market by delivering true, long term satisfaction to customers. I joined when Dyson was a small start-up of just 9 people, working as a design engineer, but quickly ended up leading design teams as the company grew and undertook more projects, dominating in the floor care category in many markets around the world. After a period as Industrial Design Director focusing on the visual design and user interactions on products such as the Supersonic hairdryer, I spent 4 years in Singapore and Malaysia leading and building the R&D function, putting all Dyson products into production following their transfer from the UK, increasing the number of projects delivered each year. Since returning to the UK I have been on the Senior Executive Team, focussed on the early stage development of innovative new product concepts, most recently in robotics, wearables and other new categories, building, leading and guiding multi-disciplinary technical teams to invent a pipeline of new products for those categories, aligning with the Board and contributing to overall business growth targets. Career highlights include designing numerous award winning products, especially those that had a transformational impact on the business such as the V8 stick; the first cordless stick vac that could seriously be considered as a replacement to a mains machine. Launched in 2016, it ramped Dyson’s growth and is still on sale now. Also CoVent, an emergency ventilator designed & built in 12 weeks during the first COVID lockdown. I am straightforward and committed to the work I do. Optimistic and calm under pressure, I value great collaboration, design focus, determination, results and doing the right thing. My areas of expertise are: Creating a culture of innovation | Team building & Leadership | Strategic planning & product ranging | Product design | Project planning | Commercial awareness and P&L | User experience & service journey | Process improvement & change management | Communication | Inspiring people leadership | Career development & mentoring