Afterpay

Creating a more connected global product experience

As Head of Product Design, I led design across Afterpay and Clearpay's global consumer product portfolio, spanning shopping, account management, membership, in-store payments, lending and checkout.

Afterpay had grown from a simple way to pay into a much broader product ecosystem. My role was to help turn that ecosystem into a clearer, more coherent experience, while teams continued to ship against ambitious customer, commercial and market priorities.

MY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Setting the experience direction across Afterpay and Clearpay's global consumer product portfolio

• Scoping and prioritising initiatives across shopping, account management, membership, in-store payments, lending and checkout

• Guiding work from strategy and research through to launch and ongoing product evolution

• Leading the evolution of the design system, visual language and interaction standards

• Managing trade-offs between delivery velocity, commercial priorities and longer-term product quality

• Partnering with product, engineering, legal, risk, brand and marketing

• Aligning senior stakeholders and representing design within the Australian leadership team

The challenge

Making many experiences feel like one Afterpay

Customers used Afterpay to discover retailers and products, shop online and in-store, manage orders and payments, access membership benefits and choose how they wanted to pay. Those experiences were delivered by different squads, each working against its own customer needs, commercial priorities and market requirements. The challenge was to give teams enough independence to move quickly while ensuring customers experienced one coherent product.

The product foundations also needed significant work. A coherent tokenised design system did not yet exist across the experience. The visual language needed to be modernised and refined, interaction patterns needed to become more consistent, and the technical foundations had to improve without slowing delivery.

This was not a choice between strategy and execution. It required both: setting a longer-term direction, then staying close enough to the work to decide what to improve, what to simplify and what teams needed to ship next.

Leading at portfolio level

Connecting priorities, decisions and delivery

I led design across four connected areas: shopping, health and lending, in-store and membership, and checkout. Designers worked within cross-functional squads alongside product and engineering, while I provided direction across the portfolio and connected decisions between teams.

My responsibilities included setting experience priorities, scoping initiatives, directing research, managing trade-offs between delivery velocity and longer-term quality, guiding work from strategy through to launch, evolving the design system and aligning senior stakeholders.

I reported to the Cash App Head of Design for Commerce and represented Afterpay design within the Australian leadership team.

Strengthening the foundations

Building the system while continuing to ship

We strengthened and embedded a dedicated design system across the product, developing a more coherent tokenised foundation and improving how design decisions translated into implementation.

The central trade-off was how much to invest in getting the baseline right while maintaining product velocity. I guided which foundations had to be resolved first, where squads could continue within agreed constraints and how the system could mature alongside feature delivery.

This work was both technical and visual. It created greater consistency between independently operating squads, supported more reliable implementation and gave teams a stronger benchmark for simplicity, refinement and craft.

Making Shop a stronger destination

From merchant directory to richer discovery experience

We evolved Shop through clearer navigation and richer discovery, including search and categories, shop tiles, gift cards, featured event mastheads and new ways to surface merchants and products.

Video Shop introduced a more engaging, content-led way for customers to discover products and retailers. It also created the foundations for a merchant proposition where premium content and placements could support future advertising revenue.

This was an important product and commercial shift. The work improved the customer experience while opening a new way for Afterpay to create value for merchants and monetise discovery.

Expanding the everyday value of Afterpay

Simplifying Afterpay Plus

Afterpay Plus is a subscription proposition that gives customers additional benefits, including the ability to pay with Afterpay more widely rather than only with participating Afterpay merchants.

I guided the evolution of the proposition, onboarding and subscription journey, deciding when the experience needed an uplift and where it could be simplified.

A key product moment was reducing subscription to a one-click flow. The experience removed unnecessary friction while retaining the clarity customers needed to understand what they were joining and the value it provided.

Making account and payment management clearer

My Afterpay is the account-management area of the product, where customers manage orders, payments and account activity.

We refreshed the experience to make that relationship easier to understand and manage. The work included bundled payments, clearer notifications and improvements to supporting-payment journeys, helping customers see what was due and take action with less effort.

Together, Plus and My Afterpay helped extend the product beyond individual transactions and create a more useful ongoing relationship with customers.

Shaping greater payment flexibility

Establishing the foundations for Pay Monthly

I was core to the initial strategy for Pay Monthly, working with product, legal and risk to understand what was possible and define the foundations for a longer-term payment proposition.

The work required us to navigate the practical and regulatory constraints of a credit product while protecting the qualities customers associated with Afterpay: transparency, clear costs and a defined end date.

Pay Monthly was live in the US during my time at Afterpay. I continued to shape and evolve the proposition as we learned from the product in market, connecting the strategic intent to the detail of the customer experience and the wider Afterpay portfolio.

After my time at Afterpay, a later team developed and launched the Australian proposition in partnership with Apple. This is not delivery I claim as my own, but it demonstrates the longer-term trajectory of the proposition and the foundations established through the earlier strategy and live US product.

Reducing effort at checkout

Improving conversion through focused product decisions

We continued to improve checkout across Pay in 4 and Pay Monthly, focusing on reducing customer effort and supporting completion and conversion across a large customer and merchant network.

One example was autofill, which reduced the time customers spent completing checkout by approximately 20 seconds. It is a relatively focused change, but at Afterpay's scale this kind of improvement created meaningful value for customers, merchants and the business.

The impact

Stronger product outcomes and a more coherent design capability

The portfolio delivered improvements across product adoption, customer effort, conversion and commercial performance.

The broader leadership outcome was a more connected product and design direction. We linked immediate delivery to longer-term improvements in the design system, visual language and customer experience, giving squads stronger foundations for consistent product development at global scale.