Modernising a banking ecosystem for 20 million customers
As Group Creative Director at R/GA, I led the design partnership with Akbank to modernise its digital brand, transform five customer and colleague platforms, and build an internal design studio capable of sustaining the work.
The engagement combined executive alignment, organisational design, customer experience strategy and delivery across one of Turkey's largest and longest-established banks.
My role
I held direct relationships with C-level leaders and worked across Akbank and R/GA to connect the transformation ambition with the teams, systems and delivery model required to achieve it.
Setting the creative and experience direction across the account
Aligning executives and platform leaders around a shared vision
Establishing the operating model for the internal design studio
Recruiting, training and leading a 15-person design team
Directing customer and colleague research
Guiding the redesign of five connected banking platforms
Establishing a shared design system and modernised visual language
A transformation beyond the mobile app
Akbank wanted to modernise the experience of a historic bank across the full service ecosystem, not simply refresh one digital channel.
The scope included the mobile banking app, ATMs, call-centre tools, ticketing machines and staff-facing platforms. Each channel served different customer, colleague and operational needs, but all needed to feel part of one recognisable Akbank experience.
Contextual research and platform data helped teams understand how people moved between digital, assisted and physical channels. This created a stronger foundation for prioritising the work and defining common experience principles.
Creating one coherent design language
We modernised Akbank's visual language and created a comprehensive design system from scratch. The system established shared foundations, components and interaction patterns across the five platforms.
It gave customer-facing and staff-facing teams a common language while allowing each channel to respond to its own context. The work improved consistency, accelerated delivery and created a practical foundation for the bank to continue evolving its products.
Building the Akbank Design Studio
The transformation required internal capability as well as new products. I led the recruitment of 15 visual and user experience designers and helped establish the studio model, leadership practices, training and quality standards.
The studio brought customer-facing and staff-facing work into one design organisation. I worked with Akbank leaders to embed new ways of working and ensure the design system, research and experience principles became part of ongoing delivery rather than remaining with the external engagement.
Executive alignment and delivery
Direct C-level relationships were central to the work. I translated the transformation vision into decisions about priorities, team capability and platform delivery, helping leaders understand how individual investments contributed to the wider customer and colleague experience.
This alignment enabled teams to redesign multiple platforms in parallel while maintaining a shared direction and consistent quality benchmark.
Impact
The engagement established a 15-person internal design team, launched a shared design system across multiple platforms and delivered a new mobile banking app to market.
More importantly, Akbank gained the capability to continue the transformation internally, supported by a clearer experience direction, a coherent design language and a studio model designed to scale.