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MATURITY

design strategy
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Elevating Experience: Transforming PEXA International from Low Design Maturity to Strategic Excellence

PEXA International required a fundamental cultural and strategic overhaul to transform its Experience Design function from a low-maturity, siloed operation into a trusted, highly visible, and influential strategic business partner. The objective was to instil a Human-Centred Design (HCD) approach across the 100+ person international delivery team (nine squads across three countries) to accelerate delivery, drive innovation, and ensure Design had a respected ‘seat at the table’.

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DESIGN MATURITY

My Expertise:

As the Head of International Design, I was brought in to lead the complete strategic and organisational overhaul. My role encompassed intense leadership, strategic planning, and hands-on cultural change:

  • Strategic Transformation:
    Planned and led the design strategy, including creating a North Star Vision and defining six core OKR streams to align design excellence with critical business and customer needs.
  • Maturity Uplift:
    Led a comprehensive programme to uplift design maturity and embed a collaborative, customer-centric culture across the large International delivery team.
  • Team Empowerment:
    Recruited, coached, and mentored the International Design Team, elevating their confidence, visibility, and expertise (e.g., mentoring success led to one designer transitioning to a dedicated Design System role at a major company).
  • Friction Removal & Process Improvement:
    Systematically removed foundational delivery blockers, such as securing a dedicated research budget and creating a generic GDPR/NDA process, which eliminated a 3-day approval delay per session.

The challenge:
The large International delivery team, despite shipping products, lacked a unified design direction, strategic vision, and a cohesive, respected design function. Design was often an afterthought, resulting in:

Low Maturity:
A significant gap in HCD principles, communication, and continuous feedback loops.

Siloed Function:
A demoralised UX team that lacked influence and was unable to contribute strategically to product decisions.

Delivery Friction:
Organisational bureaucracy (e.g., lengthy research approvals) and technical debt (components built from scratch) severely hampered speed and quality.

"I am extremely impressed with how Emma took immediate control of the design function, identified key uplift areas, and put a strong plan in place. She doggedly secured the resources needed and followed up to ensure success. Her business case documentation was above par and very convincing" .
Purnima Fernando
GM International Delivery, PEXA
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DESIGN MATURITY

The Approach:
My approach was anchored in rigorous, data-driven assessment followed by a collaborative goal-setting framework to secure cross-functional buy-in.

Baseline Assessment:
I led a comprehensive deep-dive assessment across the 100+ delivery team, synthesising 400+ insights from executives, engineers, and designers. This established a crystal-clear baseline and highlighted the most critical gaps in design practice.

Strategic OKR Framework:
Using these insights, I guided the design team to collaboratively define and own six core, prioritised OKR streams (e.g., Design System, Customer Feedback Loops, Accessibility) ensuring alignment with Product and Engineering for shared ownership.

Systematic Blocker Removal:
I focused on securing foundational resources:

  • Research Acceleration:  
    Secured a monthly budget and simplified the compliance process to significantly increase the frequency of user research.
  • Developer Efficiency:
    Collaborated with Tech Leads to secure funding and create the business case for the Design System, which was proven to reduce developer workflow time from one hour to two minutes for core components.

The Outcome:
The strategic framework and focused leadership resulted in a profound team and business transformation over 12 months, achieving high measurable success against key objectives.

The final result was a mature, strategic design function that now drives innovation and accelerates delivery across PEXA International.

Goal Achievement

Exceeded all delivery milestones, smashing four Stretch Goals (Design System, Feedback Loops, Accessibility, Communicating Value).

Design System Impact

Successfully launched the Design System foundation within five months, immediately achieving a reduction in developer workflow time from one hour to two minutes for key components.

Cultural Transformation

Design moved from a siloed function to a highly respected partner. Confidence was significantly uplifted, leading to designers taking public speaking and strategic leadership roles.

Executive Confidence

The success resulted in high executive confidence, exemplified by stakeholder feedback: "Before you came onboard, I was worried about design... now I don’t have to worry about design anymore."


What people said:

"Emma has been an integral part of the international program and amongst the first few who has brought in group first thinking to the team. She has demonstrated great leadership in representing the team, recruiting the best and ensuring team morale is always high, especially when design system requirements always get questioned. She works well with stakeholders across geographies and ensures she is pragmatic about customer needs and delivery commitments. Het positive nature and ability to build bonds helps to address complex situations and arrive at meaningful decisions without conflicts and is an integral part of the international leadership team.
Shankar Ghosh,
GM International Delivery, PEXA
"Your clarity and inspiration really make a difference, creating an environment where everyone feels valued and encouraged to share ideas. Your dedication to user-centered design is commendable, and it’s clear your efforts are driving us toward success as evidenced by the awesome North Star work. Thank you for all your help".
Jason Blewitt,
Product Manager, PEXA International
"Your professional values are strong and uncompromising, which a slow-moving and somewhat conservative company like ours greatly benefits from. Without your advocacy, I don't know how we would have otherwise gained the respect we have from the ELT to date. I specifically want to call out you unwavering support for consistent approaches to product and service experience and with the DesignSystem, despite all the very real resource constraints and organisation restructure. Your leadership and expertise in your field are an inspiration to my own career development. You deserve a big thank you!
Design leader,
PEXA Australia