Founding designer at a Solana-powered digital dollar wallet for emerging markets, serving consumers, freelancers, and SME merchants (a16z crypto, Dragonfly, Coinbase Ventures, VanEck, Solana Ventures · $20M total raised)
- Validated product-market fit through on-ground surveys, interviews with freelancers, remittance centers, and receivers—uncovered that people hold foreign currency in physical cash to hedge inflation, and that 65%+ of Pakistan's crypto trades are USDT with no legal fiat off-ramp. Findings shaped ZAR's core product direction.
- Led the full brand-to-product pipeline: translated Ragged Edge's (London) brand guidelines into a complete product design language—screens, components, interactions, and design system—then worked closely with engineers to ship it into production within weeks
- Built Techtonic design system (670+ components, 37 Figma pages, 3 platforms) with design tokens in code—enabling zero visual drift across Flutter, React Native, and Web
- Hired and managed 3–4 designers; established design governance, brand compliance, and UX standards across all product squads. Worked closely with top design agencies including Ragged Edge and ToyFight.
- Reduced user onboarding from 18 steps to 4 (77.8% reduction) by redesigning the Golden Flow—value-first architecture where users see money before creating an account. Presented to board of directors.
- Redesigned merchant onboarding from 19 steps to 4 using QR-based authless architecture and $5 ghost wallets—targeting 100,000 merchants with zero employees
- Discovered through field observation that 72% of merchant transactions bypassed the formal order system—killed the order flow entirely and redesigned around the 3-step physical-first model merchants were already using
- Eliminated design as a bottleneck through three iterations: first built an AI design consultant (Chothu), then automated the full workflow so engineers self-serve directly from the 670-component design system via AI—no designer needed for MVP screens
- Designed brand identity, IA, and design system for MACHINA—ZAR's AI-native operating system suite (5 tools: Nexus, Agentus, Empirium, Agora, Eventus) built on the "0-Person Company" thesis. Primary users are AI agents, secondary users are humans—designed for both.
Led product design at one of the world's largest Islamic banks (1M+ registered app users, 1.5M customers, 80% digital adoption, 99% digital transactions). Designed Sharia-compliant consumer banking experiences including cross-border remittances and open banking. Named "Best Bank for Consumers" by Euromoney 2025.
- Designed end-to-end UX for Remit! (Visa Direct)—real-time cross-border money transfers reaching 11B+ cards, wallets, and accounts globally. First bank worldwide to offer such reach.
- Designed open banking UI/UX from zero in partnership with Lean Technologies, advancing UAE's Open Finance ecosystem
- Audited and restructured a fragmented design system across all screens—rebuilt as atomic component library with governance standards and QA processes across all product domains
Founding Product Designer at Pakistan's first neobank. Grew from sole IC to Head of Design, scaling the product from zero users to 4M+ and $1.5B+ annual transaction volume. Led both consumer wallet and SadaBiz (SME/freelancer banking).
- Designed the product experience from day one that helped secure $7.2M seed (largest by a Pakistani startup at the time), $20M+ total funding, and a $50M acquisition by Papara. App Store: 4.8★ (11K reviews), Play Store: 4.7★ (50.9K reviews).
- Grew SadaBiz (SME/freelancer banking) transaction volume by 441% ($160K→$869K/month) and reduced fraud rate by 79% (3.26%→0.67%) through service design blueprints mapping front-stage and back-stage operations.
- Led product strategy across 8+ surfaces: core wallet, SadaBiz (SME), chatbot, Mission Control (internal ops for 50+ associates), SadaSchool, in-app stories, and website (CSS Design Awards Special Kudos).
- Simplified authentication by challenging assumptions the industry accepted as mandatory—removed unnecessary PINs, passwords, and OTPs, replacing them with biometric login. SadaPay became the go-to wallet for daily transactions due to speed.
- Designed a gamified waitlist that grew to 700,000+ signups with zero paid acquisition—Founders Club cards, golden tickets, and referral mechanics. Waitlist users became the highest-transacting cohort post-launch.
- Launched the first numberless debit card in the Middle East and Africa in collaboration with Mastercard—vertical design, teal and peach colorways. The card became SadaPay's most recognizable brand asset.
- Built Nukta design system with tokens connected to production code—first design token implementation in Pakistan's fintech. New features shipped 2x faster after adoption.
- Scaled design team from 1→8: created 4-level career progression framework, 7-stage hiring pipeline, design chapter with weekly crits and quarterly retros. Alumni now at Revolut and other top companies.
- Built a centralized user research practice from scratch—research repository, UX research toolkit, interview frameworks, and The Mom Test adoption across the entire product org.
SME-focused spend management platform for UAE small businesses and freelancers. CTO from N26, backed by leading investors.
- Designed the complete fintech app in 8 sprints—wireframes, UX flows, micro-interactions, and stakeholder presentations to C-level leadership
- Built Xperia design system from scratch using atomic design principles with full documentation and engineering walkthroughs
Launched design career on ride-hailing (Darkcarz, Whipp), food delivery (MyGroser, FoodXpress), and on-demand service apps (Harecut, Paddle, Noon, Boon4).
Selected Consulting
Led complete UI/UX transformation for VPN app with 25M+ downloads and 1M+ daily users. Redesigned interface, optimized paywall conversion, and built atomic design system across iOS, Android, and Chrome extension.
Overhauled UX for Oracle-integrated compliance platform serving Fortune 500 companies. Built design system from zero, conducted user testing with enterprise compliance managers.
Designed UX for the world's largest culture-only consulting firm (40+ countries, 20,000+ survey respondents, acquired by ZRG Partners). Built Taylor Assessment—the only psychometric tool that measures individual culture contribution across 6 archetypes and 30 behaviors (press-released globally, Jan 2024). Designed Culture Insights Survey (90 behaviors, multi-language, immediate portal results) and Target Culture Mapping tool (80+ executive workshops delivered). Digitalized complex Excel-based workflows into automated software.
Mentored designers globally on product design, career growth, and portfolio development.