challenge
Standard Chartered Bank was under pressure to modernize across markets. Despite ambitions to become more client-focused, data-driven, and digitally enabled, execution was fragmented: Design practices varied wildly across teams with no unified methodology or system. Legacy systems blocked integration, slowing transformation timelines. Feedback loops were inconsistent or absent. Customer and employee experience was disconnected from product delivery. Internal teams lacked the frameworks or confidence to scale design in a compliant, regulated environment. → The real challenge wasn’t just systems; it was a lack of alignment, rhythm, and empathy across the experience ecosystem.
Client
Standard Chartered
Format
Platform
ACTION
As the UX/CX lead in the Group Transformation Office, I designed and led a bank-wide initiative to elevate design maturity as a strategic asset. Key actions included: Established a bank-wide design system: consolidating multiple, fragmented systems into one unified, compliant, and scalable design-to-code platform. Formulated governance and adoption roadmaps: enabling consistent design execution across business units, geographies, and platforms. Implemented the "Listen, Measure, Act" model: embedding feedback loops into journey-level design for both customer and employee experience. Orchestrated cross-functional enablement through training, playbooks, and embedded rituals to increase internal adoption and alignment. Collaborated with compliance and legal to embed regulatory requirements into the design framework, ensuring both scale and safety.
RESULTS
A single, bank-wide end-to-end design system integrated into product development and scaled globally. Improved alignment across design, product, and technology for a faster, more consistent digital delivery. Greater customer and employee engagement via journey-informed design enhancements. Design became a recognized lever for transformation, not a siloed function. Internal teams were empowered with tools, methods, and clarity, leading to better outcomes, faster.
LEADERSHIP LENS
Throughout this engagement, I led with my core principles of: Clarity – Making design strategy and decisions visible, understood, and replicable. Cadence – Building repeatable rhythms and governance so transformation could sustain itself. Care – Mentoring teams unfamiliar with structured design, and balancing compliance with creativity. These values are how I lead every project, not just to deliver, but to change how teams work, decide, and grow.
