Phil started his career in the creative industries in the late 1980s, and since then has worked as a creative lead for British Airways as well as running his own digital agency Silbo working with clients such as Virgin Holidays, Channel 4, War Child, as well as regeneration projects such as the Digital City in Teesside. Phil also joined the board of an international NGO in 2008 and has worked with the United Nations.

Phil also graduated in 2016 with a Professional Doctorate “The realization of a value-led organization: the “Digital NGO” as a case study”. This research fused industry-specific concepts such as Human Centred Design, Agile methods and Data Journalism with academic theory and personal motivations, leading to the formulation of an ethically-driven approach that he chose to call “Empathetic Design”.