I lead the design team responsible for Absa’s banking app. We work closely with product leaders, engineers, business partners and our other channels to design and ship financial services to customers. Our design work covers everything from discovery, through concept development, validation and delivery.

In 2018 I initiated and led a full redesign of the app as part of an overall bank rebrand. We improved the information architecture and implemented a design system for the app. This provided the fundamental framework for the growth of the app since. At the same time, I led the design of the first WhatsApp-based banking solution (in the world, at the time).

Since 2018 the App Store rating of Absa’s app has improved from 2.7 to 4.7 out of 5, on both iOS and Android. The number of active customers using the app has grown by approximately 60% year-on-year, to 1.8m active users today.

I've also shaped the design organisation at Absa. I created a skill development framework for designers to work with their mentors to grow their design skills. I also helped develop our grad program which was in response to a lack of high quality design skills in South Africa. We take graduate-level designers through a 1 year programme of accelerated learning.

At Absa I have learnt a lot about managing a large design organisation. My team is about 20 designers, and the whole design organisation is around 100. We’ve implemented design operations and standards to help us scale. We’ve centralised some support functions and we’ve adjusted the organisation structure to create better career paths for designers. We’ve established design as a critical function within the organisation, advocating for design and working into each of the business areas throughout the organisation.

I’ve also learnt a lot about financial services. People feel very strong, fundamental emotions about their money and this drives behaviour at a level that few organisations seem to be aware of. Designing great services is made even more complex by the regulatory and risk environment around banking. This all requires very capable designers, who are willing to untangle complex value chains in order to design great customer experiences.

Together with 2 co-founders, I started a company called Stub, with a mission to help more small businesses in Africa grow and succeed. We provide an invoicing and accounting platform that is really easy to use, so that anyone, no matter their financial know-how, can manage their money. It automates some common tasks, helping business owners get paid quickly. And as people use our toolset it learns about their business and provides insights into their specific market. I'm responsible for the product and I designed and built the front-end.

We’ve validated that Stub is something that people actually want — we’ve acquired a few passionate (paying) customers, and we’re actively building to grow our market. We’re in a very early stage of the business and looking at how we could scale and grow, especially given the venture capital environment in Africa and the competitive landscape around us.

I’ve learnt all about the needs of business owners and entrepreneurs. I’ve seen how most financial service providers fail to really serve business owners. I’ve learnt that most corporate financial solutions are built around large groups of people (working inefficiently and at relatively low levels) rather than more robust technology solutions. This just under-serves a large number of small to medium-size enterprises.

I’ve also learnt about the power of a close-knit team who can disagree strongly with each other and at the same time trust one another’s perspective and commitment to getting the right things done.

I started the design team in Johannesburg (as an extension of the team in Cape Town) and worked with the broader strategy and consulting business to grow the capability within Deloitte Digital. I managed customer-led innovation and human-centred design programmes, primarily in the financial services industry.

I led consulting teams through projects where we designed products and services using customer discovery, lean startup, prototyping and iterative design. I ran design thinking and product management training programmes. I also led customer research initiatives for strategic projects and I helped some clients establish design-led innovation and customer research practices.

During this time I learnt a lot about how corporate organisations work. I saw first-hand how incentives and organisation structures drive certain behaviours. I saw the opportunities and challenges that come with scale. And I learnt that no business actually buys design (they buy an outcome that may require design along the way). I worked to systemise our design practice so that we could scale and still be effective. I learnt how to get teams to have creative ideas and be collaborative, as well as resilient, as they pursue meaningful impact.

I managed the UX team and the delivery of user experience work on all digital projects at Ogilvy, including pitching for work, scoping it, managing its delivery and engaging with stakeholders along the way.

My team delivered end-to-end user experience design, including archetypes, journey maps, system models, wireframes, interactive prototypes and mockups. We tested our designs with users and constantly sought customer feedback, collaborating closely with other disciplines to deliver solutions. I worked with many different clients, large and small, in industries including clothing retailers, consumer goods manufacturers, quick service restaurants, mobile network operators, airline operators, hotel businesses and others.

Working at Ogilvy I naturally learnt a lot about marketing. I saw some companies spend far too much on marketing because they had a bad product, and conversely some spend too little because they thought their product was good enough to sell itself. I learnt about the power of storytelling and how brand’s get built. I got to work with smart, capable, senior business leaders to help them shape their digital strategies and figure out how to grow their businesses in a changing world.

I was part of the user experience design team at Chillisoft, where I designed (and in some cases built) interfaces for client software projects. We worked closely with our developers on one hand (to implement the right solutions) and our clients on the other hand (to solve the right problems).

My clients included a multinational logistics company, a company that built custom access management hardware, a startup working on a managed building contractor solution, a steel distribution company and many more.

I learnt a lot about how businesses work during this time. I saw the various value chains and inner workings of different businesses. I learnt about the roles that people play in organisations of different sizes and how incentives affect their work. I learnt to negotiate with business stakeholders and I worked with them to build journey maps and models to drive understanding and commitment to our design solutions.

I co-founded an online retail company. We sold and installed audio and media systems for many different clients including schools, theatres and live production venues. I designed the brand, built and managed the website, developed marketing programmes, and managed all of the digital infrastructure, while my cofounder negotiated with our suppliers, managed our inventory and serviced our customers — all while we were both selling as much as we could.

I learnt that winning customer’s is so much more than “build it and they will come”. To differentiate ourselves in a highly competitive and saturated market we tried many strategies — even developing our own line of custom guitar effects pedals. I learnt about the importance of cashflow and of having runway. I learnt that a brand is really about building trust with customers. I learnt to focus on the urgent needs of the day, without neglecting the important needs of the bigger picture.

Ultimately, in 2018, we decided to close the business as we were all moving into different life stages and we wanted to explore new opportunities. I’m most proud that we’re all still great friends to this day.

In addition to multimedia production, I built and managed a number of websites for OneLife’s initiatives. My work covered design, development, SEO, content strategy and analytics. This included 2 full redesigns as we grew the audience by over 300% in 3 years.

I was also part of the media team where I designed media and marketing for multiple campaigns and events. My work included photography, film production, sound/music recording, print design and above the line marketing. I also led the live sound production teams.

I learnt a lot of practical design skills in this time (like how to use design software, how color-grading works, how to build a Wordpress Theme, how different kinds of printing production work and much, much more). I developed the “muscle memory” for designing aesthetics and layout (to tell a story clearly), and I learnt about communicating effectively across many different mediums.

OneLife is a non-profit organisation based in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, with programmes for community betterment, leadership development, family counselling and more.

I developed .NET software solutions for Chillisoft clients, which included government agencies and corporate businesses. Most notably, I designed and built a pharmaceutical management system, used to manage the inventory of pharmacies within the government healthcare system. This system went on to be widely used across KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

I learnt about the value of iteration and how Agile software development really works. I discovered the power of Lean and I built software using Test Driven Development and automation (which were pretty novel ideas back in 2008). I also first discovered design at this time, when a client asked if I could make their logo bigger. That got me thinking what are they trying to achieve by doing that? That thought changed the course of my life.

Chillisoft is a software development agency based in Durban, South Africa.