Pip Cleaves is a Systems & Practice Designer and the founder of Pattern & Thread, the consultancy that designs the systems and practice of learning for schools, organisations, and curious humans designing their own.

Her career has spanned schools, education systems, and technology companies across Australia and globally. Previous work includes senior curriculum and IT roles at the NSW Department of Education, partnership work with Microsoft, and a position on Adobe's global education team. Pip is one of two certified peer coaching master trainers in Australia, and has been designing AI systems and structures in schools since 2022.

Pip's work runs on systems thinking. She looks at how learning environments hold together, what they're built to do, and where they're quietly working against the people inside them. The work then designs from there, often using a combination of action learning and design thinking refined over fifteen years of practice.

She is also late-diagnosed Autistic and ADHD, which informs the way she designs learning for practitioners and learners alike. Neurodivergent-affirming design isn't a niche specialism in her work, it's a foundation. The systems she designs work because they're built for actual humans, including the time-poor, the neurodivergent, and the ones who already know things consultants don't.

Pattern & Thread is based in Victoria, Australia. Pip writes about learning, systems, and AI on Substack.