We are practitioners, not just consultants.
Propel Design is a boutique, female-founded strategic design and delivery consultancy. We work at the intersection of human-centred design, service delivery, and organisational capability, partnering with teams to tackle complex, high-stakes challenges.
We believe organisations don’t just need their problems solved. They need the confidence, capability, and clarity to solve them again.
That belief shapes everything we do. We work alongside teams rather than operating as a black box, integrating into delivery environments, sharing our thinking, and adapting our methods to the context we’re working in. Our focus is on making sense of complexity, applying the right practices at the right time, and ensuring capability stays with the organisation long after our engagement ends.
Much of our work sits within complex and regulated environments, including government, where decisions carry real consequence and accountability matters. But our approach applies wherever scale, ambiguity, and trust are part of the challenge.
Our Story
Propel was shaped through years of working together and developing a deep respect for each other’s practice. Coming from service design and user research, we saw firsthand how often organisations relied on external expertise without being supported to build their own capability.
We had both worked on major transformation programs and within large institutions, and we kept seeing the same pattern. Delivery would happen, but teams were left dependent, uncertain, or unable to sustain the work once consultants moved on.
Propel was established to challenge that model.
From the beginning, we set out to deliver meaningful outcomes while deliberately uplifting the capability of the people we worked with. To partner rather than prescribe. To work in the open. And to approach complex problems with care, rigour, and respect for context.
Capability uplift isn’t a separate offering for us. It’s embedded in how we work, how we make decisions, and how we measure success.
Meet our founders
Meera Pankhania
Design Director & Co-Founder
Hello, I’m Meera. I’m drawn to complex problems, particularly where strategy, systems, and delivery meet. I work at the intersection of these spaces, helping organisations navigate complexity and move from intent to action in ways that work in the real world.
My background spans service design, user research, and product management, and I bring these disciplines together to design services and products that hold up beyond the initial idea. I’ve worked across the public and private sectors in Australia and the UK, often in large, complex environments where decisions carry real consequence. Earlier in my career, I worked on inclusive user experience initiatives for organisations such as the BBC and contributed to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, experiences that continue to shape how I think about designing for everyone.
In Australia, I’ve led service design on large transformation programs and worked hands-on across all research, design, and delivery stages, including product leadership on whole-of-government digital identity services. I’ve also supported senior leaders and delivery teams in high-pressure environments, including time as a Senior Policy Adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic. These experiences have shaped how I approach decision-making, prioritisation, and delivery when the stakes are high. I genuinely enjoy working with people and teams, and care deeply about coaching and mentoring others to understand user needs, balance organisational goals, and make confident, well-judged decisions.
At Propel, I bring a systems perspective and a strong focus on alignment, delivery readiness, and capability uplift. I care deeply about leaving teams more confident, capable, and supported than when I arrived, so they can continue the work long after we step away.
Outside of work, you’ll usually find me on a tennis court, following football closely, or behind a camera experimenting with astrophotography.
Hi! I’m Ruth. I’ve always been drawn to a good puzzle. Whether I’m untangling a high-stakes systemic challenge for a government agency or designing a piece of jewellery using digital fabrication, I’m driven by the same goal: making sense of complexity to find the way forward.
I work at the intersection of people, systems, and evidence. While organisations often lead with business and technical lenses, I believe the real key to solving complex problems lies in the human experience. I specialise in navigating all three - balancing technical constraints and strategic goals with a deep, empathetic understanding of the people they impact. My approach is intentionally pragmatic; I’m interested in insights that don’t just look good on paper but work in the real world.
I’m at my best in "messy" environments - those highly regulated or complex spaces across the public and private sectors, where ethics, accessibility, and accountability are the foundation of success. I don’t believe research should happen in a vacuum. To me, it’s a team sport. I’ve spent much of my career leading and coaching multidisciplinary teams, helping them move from discovery to delivery with confidence. I’m passionate about helping your team build their own research muscles so they can keep asking the right questions long after our work together is done.
Inclusion is the heart of my practice. I’ve dedicated much of my career to advocating for ethical research with vulnerable cohorts, ensuring that strategy and services are shaped by the people who need them most.
For me, success is a team that feels supported, capable, and equipped. Outside of the office, you’ll likely find me in an escape room, happily immersed in a complex puzzle under pressure - proving that whether it’s for a client or for fun, I simply love the process of finding the way forward.
Ruth Ellison
Research Director & Co-Founder