Global Head of Design
SMS Group GmbH
Timeframe
2022 — 2024
Scope
14+ designers · Europe & LATAM · Industrial B2B
Role
Global Head of Design
Transforming design from a fragmented function into a scalable, outcome-driven product capability across Europe and LATAM.
+30%
Delivery efficiency
+20%
Team productivity
+25%
Stakeholder satisfaction
14+
Designers led
01 — Context
A global industrial B2B company built on engineering culture and legacy systems.
Complex platforms, strong engineering ownership, and design operating in pockets — without a shared process, governance, or language to align teams across Europe and LATAM.
02 — Challenge
Design was fragmented, inconsistent, and disconnected from business outcomes.
- 01No unified design process across regions or product lines.
- 02UX involvement inconsistent — often brought in too late.
- 03Output-driven culture optimized for delivery, not impact.
- 04Fragmented teams across geographies with different maturity levels.
03 — Approach
Three strategic pillars to scale design as an outcome-driven capability.
Building a result-oriented organization
What I did
Introduced OKRs across the design org and aligned team objectives directly with business goals and product KPIs.
Why it mattered
Shifted the conversation from shipping screens to driving measurable outcomes, giving design a seat at strategic planning.
Designing a scalable product design process
What I did
Defined phases, roles, artefacts, and decision gates. Standardized how discovery, design, and delivery flow across squads.
Why it mattered
Reduced ambiguity between teams, accelerated onboarding, and made quality repeatable across regions.
Implementing design governance
What I did
Created review rituals, critique frameworks, and quality bars — balancing central consistency with local autonomy.
Why it mattered
Unlocked speed without compromising coherence, and gave leaders a clear model for decision-making.
04 — Outcomes
Measurable impact across delivery, teams, and business alignment.
+30%
Faster project turnaround
+20%
Team productivity increase
+25%
Stakeholder satisfaction
−
Reduced rework & handover friction
05 — Design System
Plasma UI — a scalable design system for complex industrial products.
At SMS group, I led the governance of a scalable Design System to support complex, data-heavy digital products across regions and teams.
Layer
Foundations
Color, typography, spacing and accessibility tokens — the shared visual language across every product.
Layer
Component Library
Production-ready building blocks — data grids, cards, forms — documented for design and engineering.
Layer
Patterns & Usage
Filtering, sorting, editable states and complex interactions, codified for consistent application.
A strong focus on documentation and adoption ensured clarity between design and engineering through detailed specs and usage guidelines. Strategically, the system became a bridge between design, product, and engineering — enabling faster delivery, improved consistency, and a scalable foundation for future development.
Documentation site
Foundations
Color system
Component anatomy & specs
Patterns — Data Grid
06 — Leadership impact
Growing designers, credibility, and a shared operating model.
- 01Developed 14+ designers into autonomous product thinkers with clear growth paths.
- 02Embedded data-driven decision-making and outcome metrics across squads.
- 03Increased design credibility in an engineering-led environment through visible wins.
- 04Partnered with product & engineering leadership to shape strategic roadmaps.
07 — Key learnings
What I took from leading design at enterprise scale.
- 01Design leadership is about systems and people — not pixels.
- 02Governance, done well, enables speed instead of slowing it down.
- 03OKRs drive cultural change only when implemented with care and context.
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