Design Operations Manager
CurrentAs the Design Operations Manager at Koombea, I lead and mentor a talented team of product designers, driving strategic design initiatives and ensuring exceptional user experiences. I foster creativity and collaboration through bi-weekly One-on-Ones, weekly Team Design Meetings, and quarterly Design Audits. I oversee design quality, ensure high standards through staging app reviews, and manage toolsets by evaluating, selecting, and training the team while controlling costs. I adapt and implement design processes to deliver top-notch product design and created Kore, a reusable design system ensuring consistency and quality across projects.I am responsible for resource allocation, budget tracking, and maintaining project efficiency metrics. I conduct technical interviews, evaluate candidates, and manage onboarding and training. Supporting the sales team, I estimate new projects, participate in Ideation Workshops, and create UI concepts. I also secure and manage key client accounts through regular meetings and design reviews, and contribute to internal design needs and marketing strategies. I promote team growth through workshops, critiques, and fostering a joyful, trustful community. I collect 360º feedback, prepare evaluation reports, and conduct individual and team assessments. To ensure continuous improvement, I conduct internal workshops on industry trends and upskilling, and developed a design portal to centralize and streamline processes.Notable achievements include growing the design team by 500%, securing 5 sub-projects from a global client, achieving a 100% Net Promoter Score (NPS) within the design team, winning over 30 awards at the Indigo Awards, developing a successful hiring process, keeping utilization and efficiency metrics always high, and suggested use an internal project as a lab to test new design processes and user success metrics.
