Scaling a Global Design practice
Sopra Banking Software
Introduction
Sopra Banking Software (part of Sopra Steria Group, 5,000+ employees) launched its NEO Global Business Unit to deliver next-gen digital banking solutions across Europe, MENA, and Asia. I was brought in to build and scale the Product Design practice from the ground up.
What I did
As the Lead Product Design Manager for the Global business unit — I was responsible for defining design strategy, scaling processes, and embedding UX across multidisciplinary product teams dispersed across multiple global offices.
Impact snapshot
COST SAVING
24% saved
through optimized tooling spend
FASTER DELIVERY
3x faster
Accelerated product feature launch after design-led process overhaul
TEAM GROWTH
2x team
Doubled Product + Design team capacity across 8 global squads
CUSTOMER SENTIMENT
57 NPS
Measured increase in customer satisfaction following release of 38 major features
When I joined on as the first Product Design Lead at Sopra Banking, the team was building fast but without the structure, clarity, or design capacity needed to scale. My challenge was to keep product delivery moving while setting up the foundations of a real Design Practice.
The core problems were clear:
Limited understanding of design’s role and value
Too few designers for the pace of work
No consistent process or quality checks across the product lifecycle
A complex ecosystem with siloed teams and unclear handoffs
To strengthen delivery and raise design maturity, I focused on building clarity, structure, and scalable processes across the organisation. Here's what I did:
Set up a clear Design Intake process→ so teams could prioritise work properly and understand what design would deliverImproved cross-team collaboration→ via a bespoke Ways of Working rolled out across all squads, capturing everything from Design Kanban through structured Figma review ritualsBuilt a lean Design-at-Scale framework→ to speed up delivery across multiple squadsIntroduced DesignOps governance→ to optimise tools, reduce costs, and standardize design and development workflowsEstablished a federated Product Design System→ tied to coded components to ensure consistency and reusable UI patternsIntegrated usability testing and OKRs→ into the design process to measure impact and improve decision-makingMentored and developed the team→ through skill assessments and individual growth plans
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My team and I handled all design needs across a vast, interconnected and interdependent ecosystem.
The Digital Banking Suite enabled financial institutions to rapidly deploy end-to-end digital banking services across retail and SME customer engagement, core banking workflows and integrations.
WAYS OF WORKING
PRODUCT + DESIGN DELIVERABLES
Seamless integration for Product & Design quality through every stage
Set-up the fresh Product Design practice for success with a comprehensive Ways of Working playbook for teams to better align with design.
Design raced four entire sprints ahead of Development
Effectively embedded design into the process, cutting feature discovery and design time by at least 60%.
Established Design presence across six global offices
Grew the team from 2 to 10 designers within 8 months. Better visibility of Design ROI among upper management stakeholders and built trust amongst PMs and Engineers.
Results
Design became a strategic enabler for the organisation; greatly improving speed, consistency, and collaboration across global teams.
The NEO Digital banking suite now delivers faster, more scalable and human-centered financial experiences.
Key Learnings
Scaling an effective product team isn’t about headcount — it’s about building systems and trust.
Creating structure and shared accountability turned design into a strategic driver of product success, not just delivery.
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A powerful SaaS Customer Banking platform which addresses financial inclusion + literacy offerings for the unbanked and underbanked
