LEADING SanS AUTHORITY

PAYMENT TRANSFERS

REDEFINED

Citi Wealth

Operating from a strategy of winning at Wealth, our first executional steps involved identifying and introducing the capabilities our clients expect the firm did not yet offer.

My team’s book of work ranged from Net Worth & Insights, External Account Aggregation, and Investment Account Dashboards – all acting as the tentacles connecting our North America Wealth journeys.

Role

Creative Director

Design POD Structure

Creative Director, Producer, Copy Writer, & UX Designers

Team Size

3 - 13

Partners
Business Heads, Product Leadership, Platform Leads, Product Managers, Technology Leads, Design & UX Leadership, & Design System Governance

How

While remote, I built a team from scratch with the intention of taking a unique approach to standing up modern capabilities within a legacy-minded environment.

  • Prior to tackling funded work, I teamed up the designers to explore future state concepts to see how everyone worked – together and individually

  • Based on what I and my Producer assessed, each Designer’s strengths guided the resource assignment

  • Over time learning habits, communication styles, and sharing feedback we earned each other’s trust. Eventually creating a safe space for my team to take up space and use their voice to speak to their work.

What

The first new Wealth capabilities would live on our retail banking platform as the first widget Citigold investment clients would see upon login.

Net Worth and External Account Aggregation initiatives were a crash course in partnership – missing a shared vision, this work required alignment every step, several negotiation cycles, and brief reset which eventually led to some structure

Status

Net Worth MVP
launched in Q2 2022 with its double-click in, Net Worth Details MVP launched in 2023. Both are available post-login on Citi.com

External Account Aggregation
feature tied in to Net Worth experience to enable a holistic view of an individual client’s wealth

Wins

Pre-launch wins included:

Structured operation of my team enabled designers and writers to focus on delivering their best work

Productive partnership with my primary product partner ensuring proposed solutions aligned with the platform strategy

Productive partnership with the Design System leads, ensuring Wealth journey UIs evolved seamlessly along with the retail web and mobile platforms

Presented iterative progress along side product and tech partners as a tripod bi-monthly, gaining exposure to Wealth senior leadership

Challenges

Pre-launch challenges included:

Strict capabilities-first approach without requirements or defined measures of success lead to ongoing churn

Business and Technology leaders accepted conceptual imagery as strategy instead of code signing a shared vision to base the work

Initial lack of communication between cross-business product partners often blocked progress

Consistently shown strong, positive leadership across our Wealth dashboard team and others, acting as the glue that ties everything together for us.

Built a strong team, while never skipping a beat in delivery and thought leadership.

[Stefan] Has worn many hats, juggling multiple workstreams with grace and patience, being an example of design leadership across the organization.

Chris Worley
Previous Direct Manager at Citibank