Categories: Consumer, B2B2C, Creative Direction, Interaction Design, Product Design, Research, Testing, Design Systems, Architecture, Operations and Program Management, Brand Design, Iconography, Web Design, Visual Design, Vendor Management, Research, Growth and Experimentation

Background
When I joined TransUnion in 2014, the consumer division represented just one-third of the company’s revenue, and product design was entirely outsourced. I was hired to build and lead an internal product design team during a pivotal growth phase, including the company’s global rebrand and expansion into new consumer business verticals. During my 5 years leading design, the consumer division grew to contribute 57% of TransUnion’s revenue.

Challenges
My goal was to establish and scale an in-house product design team capable of delivering user-centered solutions for both direct-to-consumer products and B2B2C offerings through our major banking partners. During this time, I collaborated with technology teams to modernize our platforms, which initially represented significant challenges in delivering delightful and effective interaction models for our new consumer products.

While initially under-resourced, contributing hands-on to design, I grew the program with data-driven wins and effective design storytelling. I succeeded in gaining executive buy-in to launch and lead a UX research program and a growth design team managing experimentation and quantitative testing.

Contributions

• Led design-driven initiatives that boosted average revenue per user by $15/month, grew third-party revenue by 23%, and reduced support costs by 26%.

• Collaborated with agency partners to lead TransUnion’s global rebrand. Extended the initial agency brand guidelines to a design system, icon library, and extensive pattern library.

• Recruited and built an internal design team, rolling out the new brand across digital properties, including web, mobile, subscription apps, and enterprise tools.

• Led product design for TransUnion Credit Monitoring, the flagship consumer product, and refactored its features as services products for deployment to global financial institutions.

• Scaled the team’s capabilities, introducing discovery, research, prototyping, motion design, and experimentation, while embedding UX practices within TransUnion’s evolving Scaled Agile (SAFe) framework.

• Partnered with executive stakeholders and technical architects to craft high-level product strategies and validate system-level solutions across our portfolio platforms.

• Established quantitative and qualitative research programs, integrating tools like Optimizely for experimentation and driving a culture of Design Thinking and continuous iteration and validation.

• Transitioned UX operations from a centralized model to embedded Agile teams, supported by a centralized Community of Practice.

Impact
Over five years, I helped scale the company’s product development model, growing from one consumer product to eight, zero B2B2C products to seven, and supporting 74 financial institutions worldwide. I also standardized design operations and best practices, extending them to international teams. This transformation drove significant business impact, such as

• Increased the Consumer division’s share of TransUnion’s total revenue by 27%.

• Design strategies and solutions that directly added $1.1Million in annually recurring revenue for our flagship consumer product and contributed to B2B2C revenue growth of 250%.