Our founder, Neal Stone, was Head of Design at British Airways, where he led the team behind the world's first lie-flat bed in business class. The programme could have been commissioned as a seat project but became a rethink of the entire end to end journey, because the question changed once the airline looked at what passengers actually needed from a night in the air.

At GNER he led the redesign of the InterCity 225 fleet, working from the passenger's experience of the whole journey rather than from the individual components of it.

Neal is an Expert associate of the UK Design Council and a Fellow of the RSA. He co-founded the Royal College of Art Service Design MA and has taught at London, Cambridge Judge and Imperial College Business Schools.

The principle behind the work is simple. Look at the organisation from the outside-in, put what customers experience next to what the operational data says, and involve the delivery and  leadership teams directly rather than reporting to them. Most of what goes wrong is visible from the customer's side and invisible from inside the building.