Available for freelance & contract work

Timo Tolonen

Community · Support Operations · Trust & Safety

I build the human infrastructure behind global platforms: community, support, and trust & safety. More output, same headcount.

Get in touch View experience
1,000+hours/month reclaimed through automation
>96%CSAT with sub-5-hour resolution times
100%of front-line support peer-run at giffgaff
3Mlapsed members re-activated at YouGov
1M+fraud signals processed annually, <3% manual effort
About

Scaling operations without scaling headcount

15+ years leading community, support, and trust & safety operations — at Welo Data, YouGov, giffgaff, Jagex, and Electronic Arts.

My specialism: supporting large crowds — customers, players, panellists, AI trainers — without growing the team to match. Automation (LLM, RPA), peer-driven community models, and solid process. Near-double annual workload growth, same headcount, satisfaction above 96%.

Comfortable setting strategy at board level and building the workflows hands-on. The detail is in the experience below.

Services

How I can help

Freelance and contract — audits, advisory, hands-on builds, interim leadership.

Community Strategy & Operations

Peer-support models, ambassador programmes, gamification, ideation platforms, and events — from strategy to daily operations.

Support Operations & Automation

End-to-end Zendesk builds, LLM and RPA workflow automation, KPI/SLA design. Double the volume, same team.

Trust & Safety

Fraud detection systems, moderation and duty-of-care frameworks, escalation procedures, and red-team exercises.

Experience

Where I've done it

2022 – 2026

Head of Community

Welocalize / Welo Data — London

Led the global community of thousands of AI trainers and raters serving Tier 1 tech clients including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Built and managed a team of 25+ across engagement, support & onboarding, trust & safety, and platform operations.

  • Managed multiple years of near-double workload growth with a lean, highly optimised team
  • Integrated LLMs and RPA into recruitment, ticket routing, and reporting — reclaiming 1,000+ hours of productivity per month
  • Built fraud detection processing 1M+ signals annually with under 3% manual effort; red-team exercises found no critical vulnerabilities
  • Doubled onboarding volumes twice over two years at >96% CSAT and sub-5-hour resolution
2018 – 2022

Director of User Retention & Experience

YouGov — London

Owned the experience and retention of YouGov's market differentiator: a global research panel of 11M+ members across 38 countries.

  • Lifecycle campaigns that cumulatively re-activated 3M lapsed panellists
  • Built a support centre of excellence covering 19 languages, handling tens of thousands of contacts monthly
  • Rolled out global NPS and effort-score programmes; partnered with Product on a unified global app rebuild
2012 – 2018

Head of Community

giffgaff — London

Grew the volunteer-member community of the UK's "run by you" mobile network into a fully peer-run model, leading a team of 16.

  • 100% of first-contact front-line support handled by volunteer members
  • Created labs.giffgaff.com (community ideation into the product roadmap) and experts.giffgaff.com (P2P e-learning)
  • Designed the super-user programme: tiered gamification, rewards, and recognition; reported community results to the C-suite
  • Ran live events from CMX London 2015 to a 24-hour charity gaming livestream
2011 – 2012

Community Manager

Jagex (RuneScape) — Cambridge

Primary owner of community, support, and safety for the North American player base of RuneScape — 250M+ registered players — including serious trust & safety escalations with police and authorities.

Until 2011

Certification Project Manager

Electronic Arts — UK & Spain

Led 1st party (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) certification and compliance for AAA franchises including FIFA, The Sims, Harry Potter, Mass Effect, and Battlefield — the final stamp of quality before release.

Tools & Platforms

Technology I work with

Community

Khoros / LithiumDiscordRedditFacebookX / TwitterBrandwatchHootsuiteCustom forums

Support & CRM

Zendesk (end-to-end)Custom CRMsWorkdayMailchimpSurveyMonkey

AI & Automation

ClaudeChatGPTGeminiCopilotPowerAutomateRPA / UiPath

Ops, PM & Analytics

JiraConfluencePowerBIDatadogSQLNPS / CSAT toolingAsana
Contact

Let's talk

An audit, a strategy, a framework, or interim leadership — tell me what you need.

Emailtimo@timotolonen.com LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/ttolonen

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