Scaling Design & Driving Strategic Impact at Nando’s
Overview
As Lead Product Designer at Nando’s, I have played a pivotal role in transforming the customer experience across the web, app, loyalty, identity, menu, CRM, and digital ordering for the UK and Ireland. My work spans design leadership, strategic planning, and operational excellence, ensuring design is a core driver of business success. I have scaled teams, introduced new processes, and embedded a design-led mindset across departments, all while navigating company restructuring and evolving business priorities.
My experience managing and growing a high-performing design team, shaping strategic initiatives, and optimizing cross-functional collaboration has prepared me to step into a Head of Design role, where I can drive design maturity, align UX with business objectives, and build teams that deliver impactful user experiences.
Design Leadership & Team Growth
I have managed a team of eight designers, hiring and mentoring both permanent employees and contractors. I have also played a key role in recruiting six additional designers, ensuring a balance of skill sets to match business needs.
Key initiatives include:
Scaling the team: Defined hiring strategies, wrote job descriptions, led interviews, and established structured onboarding programs.
Career development: Conducted 1:1s, quarterly and annual reviews, salary evaluations, and professional development planning.
Culture & team engagement: Organized social events such as team outings to crazy golf and pizza nights, fostering collaboration and morale.
Operational excellence: Set up team-wide open sessions for design critiques, implemented weekly rotas, and established design clinics to support teams without dedicated design or product managers.
Capability-building: Ran skills matrix evaluations, calibrated role levels, and identified gaps in the team’s capabilities, ensuring targeted upskilling.
Cross-functional leadership: Regularly engaged with senior leaders across departments to shape strategic workstreams, ensuring alignment with company objectives.
Managing Design Tools & Budgets
I have led efforts in tooling, software management, and budget allocation to support a growing team and optimize design operations.
Key contributions:
Prototyping & collaboration: Managed the transition between prototyping tools, ensuring the team had the best-fit software.
Software & vendor negotiations: Led discussions with suppliers to secure cost-effective solutions for the design and tech teams.
Budget oversight: Managed budgets for software licensing, tooling, and research initiatives, ensuring cost efficiency while maintaining high-quality output.
Strategic Planning & Cross-Functional Impact
Beyond team leadership, I have played a key role in shaping Nando’s digital strategy through strategic planning and collaboration.
Key initiatives include:
Vision & strategic alignment: Worked on defining Nando’s long-term customer experience vision and conducted audits of global experiences to inform strategy.
Backlog planning & prioritization: Contributed to roadmaps by writing one-pagers, creating project briefs in Jira Discovery, and leading backlog grooming sessions.
Ideation & Innovation: Ran cross-functional workshops to generate ideas, assess value vs. effort, and ensure business objectives were met.
Multi-stakeholder collaboration: Participated in strategic workstreams such as the Digital Ordering Working Group, Loyalty & Retention Working Group, and Nuclei meetings, aligning cross-team efforts for maximum impact.
Hackathons & creativity: Co-led hackathons with the tech team, creating marketing assets to drive engagement and innovation.
Driving Business Impact Through UX
In addition to strategic leadership, I have directly contributed to high-impact projects that have driven measurable results for Nando’s.
Key projects include:
Design System Development: Spearheaded the creation of Nando’s design system, ensuring consistency across web and app experiences.
Optimizing Digital Ordering: Led improvements to the OPAT experience, post-order pages, past orders on the app, unauthenticated baskets on the web, and the introduction of guest checkout.
Payments & Checkout Enhancements: Introduced Stripe saved cards within checkout, streamlining the purchase process.
Kitchen Display & Operational Tools: Designed updates for internal kitchen display screens, improving operational efficiency.
CMS Migration: Managed the redesign and migration of Nando’s website off Drupal, ensuring a seamless transition.
Brand & Customer Experience: Worked alongside the brand and customer team to evolve brand guidelines, collaborating with external agency Sunshine Gun. Conducted deep-dive research into Nando’s culinary identity to define photography style and hero assets.
Menu Experience Research: Conducted research into Deliveroo’s menu experiences, identifying opportunities to enhance Nando’s digital menu offerings.
Fostering a Design-Led Culture
A key part of my leadership at Nando’s has been embedding design within the company’s DNA, ensuring that UX is recognized as a strategic function.
Key initiatives include:
Cross-functional design reviews to align teams on best practices and strategic goals.
Workshops & collaboration sessions to ensure alignment between design, product, and engineering.
Retros & culture monitoring to continuously improve team processes and ways of working.
Company-wide engagement through initiatives such as the Peri-Cup football tournament and Family Day BBQ, strengthening relationships across teams.
Head of Design Responsibilities & Leadership Impact
As a leader at Nando’s, I have taken on responsibilities beyond traditional design management, positioning myself as a strategic partner within the organization. I was recognised for my efforts by being invited to The Casual Dining Awards 2024, along with receiving an award for Nandoca of the quarter.
Key contributions:
Defining & executing a design strategy that aligns with business objectives and drives growth.
Managing budgets & resources to ensure sustainable scaling of design capabilities.
Shaping the role of design within the company, advocating for UX at the leadership level.
Balancing team structure, and managing both permanent employees and contractors to meet evolving business needs.
Driving performance & accountability through structured performance reviews, mentorship, and clear progression pathways.
Establishing The PERi-verse: Nando’s Design System
Recognizing the inefficiencies caused by fragmented component libraries and inconsistent brand application, I led the creation of The PERi-verse, Nando’s first structured design system. This initiative streamlined digital experiences across the web and app, reduced design and development debt, and established a scalable foundation for future growth. Following an extensive UI audit, I defined core components—including typography, CTAs, grids, and form elements—using Atomic Design methodology and Token Studio for design tokens. I collaborated with engineers to integrate the system into Storybook and documented guidelines in ZeroHeight for accessibility across teams. To drive adoption, I introduced governance frameworks, established design system rituals, and validated the system through real-world applications, such as a marketing landing page and global footer redesign. Understanding the long-term need for sustainability, I recruited a dedicated Lead Design System Designer and implemented a structured roadmap for continuous iteration. This system now serves as the backbone of Nando’s digital ecosystem, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and scalability across all customer-facing touchpoints.
Conclusion
My time at Nando’s has been defined by scaling a high-performing design team, embedding UX into strategic decision-making, and driving impactful digital experiences for customers. Through leadership, operational excellence, and a user-first mindset, I have helped transform design into a core business function.
This experience has positioned me for a Head of Design role, where I can lead design at scale, foster a high-impact team, and drive meaningful change in customer experiences.