TravelBank
U.S. Bank
All-in-one expense, travel, and card management platform. Acquired by U.S. Bank in 2021
B2B, B2C, Fintech, Travel, Leadership, Product Design, Marketing Design, Product Marketing, Accessibility
2017-2024
In 2017, I joined TravelBank as an Art Director, leading our brand and marketing design strategy.
As the pandemic reshaped the travel industry in 2020, I collaborated with our CEO to pivot TravelBank from a travel-focused platform to a money-saving expense management solution. This shift led to a strategic partnership with U.S. Bank, ultimately resulting in a $200 million acquisition.
Promoted to Head of Brand and then Head of Design, I scaled our lean design team from 1 to 6, balancing the demands of hiring, with product innovation, and marketing to our customers. Before leaving my role as Head of Design at TravelBank, I worked with the CTO and Head of Product to promote two senior members of my team to fill my position.
Examples of the expense creation and travel management experience, created by designers on the team.
An example of the dashboard of our web app, giving users an overview of their transactions and upcoming travel, created by a designer new to my team.
An example of our brand revamp, launched after my departure. The designer focused on A11Y compliance while incorporating the U.S. Bank palette.
I advocated for art directed custom photography for our marketing efforts, with a focus on diversity and inclusivity.
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Rebuilt design team, hiring for both marketing and product roles.
Managed and mentored junior and senior designers, growing the team from 1 to 6, with no turnover during my time leading.
Managed a remote team, spanning 3 timezones
Created a culture of transparency, empathy, and creativity through mentorship, cross-functional critiques, quarterly internal presentations, monthly Design Days, and a 60% increase of user research efforts.
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In addition to a user-friendly travel booking platform, TravelBank provides a simple, intuitive expense system and built-in rewards. With a consumer approach to tech, our team created an iOS, Android, and web experience that is easy to set up and gives businesses the controls they need.
Led designers who turned challenging workflows into intuitive, straightforward, and user-friendly designs.
Product areas included (but not limited to) onboarding, accounts, expense management, travel bookings, card management, and company settings.
Designed a delegate experience and onboarding for iOS and Android.
As Head of Design, advocated for the creation of a design system, leading to a gain in efficiency by 20%+.
Managed accessibility efforts for A11Y compliance for our website and product.
Led a multidisciplinary team incorporating AI/ML into our travel and expense solution.
Utilized tools like: Figma, Pendo, Appcues, Atlassian products, and Usertesting.com
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Managed and designed website, working alongside Engineering PM and developers.
Created partnership pages for key partners like Brex, Ramp, and U.S. Bank.
Designed a Marketplace which curated integrations and offers for our customers.
Simplified a complex pricing structure on our website as we moved from a free product to a subscription based model.
Designed and implemented onboarding and awareness guidance in Appcues for users, increasing adoption of new features by 20%.
Developed 20+ product walkthrough videos, cutting support tickets by 35%.
Highlights
Integrating Card into the Travel & Expense Platform
Product Design / Marketing
This video, which I created under a tight deadline for an internal conference, showcases my team’s work integrating the U.S. Bank Instant Card into TravelBank’s travel and expense platform for the Emerging Middle Market client.
Design Team Activities
Leadership / Management
Included is a visual overview of a small number of activities I led with my design team. I met 1:1 with each person weekly to discuss anything top of mind, goals, and to review design work.
Additionally, I conducted in-depth lessons with the junior members of the team each month.
Each new member of the team creates a trading card and completes a DISC assessment to determine their fit.
Team Structure
Mid-level product designer: Expense
Senior product designer: Card
Senior product designer: Growth (onboarding, subscriptions, white labeling)
Junior-product designer: Travel
Senior staff designer: Marketing/Product
Senior marketing designer: Marketing
Our lean design team balanced pod-specific work (card, travel, growth, and spend) while dedicating time to advancing our design system with Eng support.
Each quarter, the designers summarize their challenges, wins, and creative endeavors in a company-wide meeting. It quickly became one of the most attended meetings on the calendar.
I led several educational sessions, including journey mapping with a cross-functional team with the goal of better understanding our customers.
Each year, we revisit our design principles as a team.