Cogent
Helping Cogent become Australia's leading start-up design and technology consultancy with successful exit to Block Inc.
Cogent was a 70-person, deeply values-led, digital product design consultancy based in Melbourne, Australia. It helped founders and digital product teams turn early-stage ideas into thriving digital businesses. It’s one of the only companies in the world to practise a transparent salary model (everyone at Cogent knows what everyone else earns) and has remained in the top 10% of technology businesses worldwide for employee engagement. It was acquired in 2022 by Block Inc.
♥️ I'm proud of...
- Building a world-class product design team (recruiting, hiring, placing, growing)
- Creating exceptional engagement and career growth (top 10% of tech companies in Australia according to CultureAmp, top 15% globally) for my direct reports
- Using to design to unlock growth from a <1m/year consultancy to 12m+/year consultancy through the HCD development of Cogent's service offering
- Leading the strategic direction and facilitation for new company Purpose, Vision, Mission
- Helped local and global early-stage and scaling minimise waste, grow, and make a positive difference.
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Selected Work
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Gallery of design artefacts
A 20+ year collection of design artefacts
GALLERY
Helping communities around the world prevent the spread of mosquito-borne disease
World Mosquito Project
CASE STUDY
Better health knowledge, faster, at a global scale
Covidence
CASE STUDY
Saving the Australian Red Cross hundreds of thousands of dollars in technology investment in Web 3.0 and blockchain for the social sector
Australian Red Cross
CASE STUDY
Strategy and systems design for monitoring human rights in immigration detention
Bonigi Monitoring
CASE STUDY
Foundational design and research for Australia's fastest growing electric-vehicle charging network
Chargefox
CASE STUDY
Modernising fishery compliance systems for commercial fishers and fishing regulators
NSW Dept. of Primary Industries
CASE STUDY
Bringing biodiversity back to the Australian landscape at scale
Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment, and Water
CASE STUDY
Helping Cogent become Australia's leading start-up design and technology consultancy with successful exit to Block Inc.
Cogent
CASE STUDY
Fractional Head of Design services to give Good Human a path to design team stability and growth
GoodHuman
CASE STUDY
Visualising and reporting on Australian deforestation for the WWF
WWF
CASE STUDY
Always was, always will be
I have lived and worked my whole life on Gadigal (Sydney) and Wurundjeri (Melbourne) land, in Australia. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I do my work and I pay my respects to elders past & present. I acknowledge the sorrow of the stolen generations and the impacts of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I support the Uluru Statement of the Heart and I also recognise the resilience, strength and pride of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Through my work, I aim to help as much as I can to empower and help them thrive.
© Matt Shanks 2010-2024
This site does not use cookies or tracking codes like google analytics and tries to limit hi-res imagery and javascript where possible to ensure as sustainable online presence as possible. All writing and opinions are my own and do not represent the views of the client or companies I work with (although I expect that we're pretty aligned on values anyway).