ANZ Plus

ANZ Plus was a six-year run. I joined as one of two principal designers before the product had a name, helped validate the early concepts that proved out the financial wellbeing positioning, and stayed through the build, launch, and scale phases.

What I worked on

Most of my work landed in three areas. Vision and direction — keeping the design pipeline running one to two quarters ahead of delivery so engineering always had something concrete to scope against. Team — recruiting and scaling the design org through launch, and mentoring fifteen-plus designers (five of whom moved into senior or leadership roles during my tenure). And system — the design system effort I’ve broken out as a separate entry because it’s substantial enough to stand on its own.

What I learned

Greenfield banking is a strange beast. The amount of design work that lives below the surface — the system contribution, the regulatory and compliance reviews, the patterns you have to invent because the industry doesn’t have them yet — is much bigger than the amount of design work users actually see. The teams I’m proudest of building were the ones that understood this and didn’t measure themselves by the prettiness of screens alone.