The Resume
The Resume
The Resume
CASE STUDY: CITI
Transforming a Global Commercial Banking CRM
Building trust between users, business, and development through continuous research and iterative product design.
PROJECT AT A GLANCE
ROLE
Vice President, UX/UI Design & Research • 2021 - 25
PLATFORM
Salesforce Enterprise CRM
USERS
Global Commercial Banking Teams
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES
-
UX Research
-
Interaction Design
-
Product Strategy
-
Salesforce UX
-
Design Systems
-
Developer Collaboration
-
Stakeholder Alignment
THE CHALLENGE
When I joined Citi, the Commercial Banking CRM had accumulated years of technical debt, inconsistent workflows, and declining user confidence. What initially appeared to be a series of interface improvements quickly became an effort to rebuild trust between thousands of global users, business leadership, and development teams. Through continuous UX research, close collaboration with engineering, and iterative design, we transformed how the organization prioritized and delivered product improvements.
WHAT MADE THIS PROJECT HARD?
Years of Technical Debt
The CRM had evolved for years with extensive customization, inconsistent workflows, and little documentation. Even the development teams were unfamiliar with much of the system they had inherited.
Users Had Lost Confidence
Many employees believed their feedback had never been heard. Some regions actively resisted using the platform, and user frustration had become part of the product's reputation.
Global User Base
Research had to accommodate individual contributors, managers, multiple continents, time zones, and cultural differences while ensuring every voice had an opportunity to contribute.
Balancing Business & User Needs
Leadership wanted to transform the CRM into the organization's "North Star" for commercial banking data, while users simply wanted their daily work to become easier. Those priorities weren't always aligned.
Designing Within Salesforce
The platform imposed significant constraints. Every design decision required balancing usability improvements with what could realistically be delivered using Salesforce's architecture.
Continuous Change
Instead of treating the CRM as a collection of disconnected interface problems, I focused on building a continuous research and design process that connected users, business stakeholders, and development.
THE WORK CYCLE
Research
Identify Patterns
Prioritize Opportunities
Wireframes
Collaborate with Devs
Prototype
Validate with Users
Launch
Measure & Repeat
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
When I joined Citi's Commercial Banking UX team, I quickly realized that the biggest challenge wasn't Salesforce—it was trust.
The CRM had evolved over many years through countless enhancements, business requests, and technical compromises. While the platform remained critical to employees' daily work, many workflows had become increasingly complicated, requiring users to navigate unnecessary fields, duplicate information, and inconsistent experiences. Frustration with the system had become so common that many employees simply accepted it as part of their job.
Rather than immediately redesigning screens, I wanted to understand why the experience had reached this point. I began meeting with relationship managers, business leaders, product owners, and development teams across multiple regions, listening to how they actually worked instead of how the system expected them to work. These conversations revealed a consistent pattern: users weren't asking for revolutionary new features—they wanted the product to respect their time.
As the research expanded, another issue became apparent. Many employees felt they had never been given a meaningful opportunity to influence the product. Feedback often traveled through multiple layers of management before reaching the product teams, leaving users feeling disconnected from the decisions that affected their everyday work.
Those early conversations fundamentally changed my approach. Rather than treating the CRM as a collection of disconnected usability issues, I viewed it as an opportunity to establish an ongoing partnership between users, business stakeholders, and development. The interface improvements became only one part of the solution; creating a repeatable process for listening, validating ideas, and continuously improving the experience became equally important.
STRATEGIC DECISION 1: LISTEN BEFORE DESIGNING
The Challenge
When I joined the project, there was no shortage of ideas for improving the CRM. Business stakeholders had long lists of feature requests, developers were focused on technical constraints, and users had grown accustomed to working around inefficient workflows. The challenge wasn't identifying problems—it was determining which problems were actually worth solving first and rebuilding confidence that user feedback would lead to meaningful change.
My Decision
Rather than immediately redesigning workflows, I invested heavily in user research.
I organized feedback sessions across multiple regions, separating individual contributors from managers so participants could speak openly without concern for hierarchy. As participation grew, these sessions became the primary driver for prioritizing product improvements rather than relying on assumptions or isolated requests.
Why It Mattered
The research accomplished far more than uncovering usability issues—it rebuilt trust.
Users began seeing that their feedback was influencing product decisions, developers gained a clearer understanding of the problems they were solving, and business stakeholders received evidence that priorities were grounded in real user needs rather than opinions.
By establishing research as an ongoing practice instead of a one-time activity, the team created a continuous feedback loop that improved both the product and the relationships surrounding it.
STRATEGIC DECISION 2: SIMPLIFY COMPLEX WORKFLOWS
The Challenge
Many of the CRM's most important workflows had grown increasingly complex over years of incremental enhancements. As new business requirements were added, additional fields, validation rules, and processes were layered onto existing experiences without reconsidering the overall user journey. Tasks that should have been straightforward often required users to scroll through lengthy forms, search for missing information, and navigate inconsistent layouts.
The challenge wasn't simply reducing the number of fields—it was helping users complete complex tasks with greater confidence while working within the constraints of Salesforce and the organization's existing business rules.
My Decision
Many workflows suffered from unnecessary complexity.
The GFCID request process, for example, required users to navigate an endlessly scrolling form containing dozens of fields, making validation errors difficult to locate.
Rather than redesigning the workflow from scratch, I reorganized related information into logical sections, reduced unnecessary fields, and collaborated with engineering to leverage Salesforce's existing capabilities wherever possible. The resulting workflow reduced user frustration while remaining technically achievable.
Why It Mattered
Enterprise users spend their entire workday inside systems like this. Even small improvements to navigation, organization, and task completion can significantly reduce frustration when repeated hundreds of times across thousands of users.
By simplifying workflows instead of adding more functionality, we helped users complete their work more efficiently, reduced cognitive load, and created interfaces that felt more intuitive without disrupting established business processes. Just as importantly, the redesigned workflows demonstrated that user feedback was driving meaningful improvements, reinforcing confidence that the CRM was evolving in the right direction.
STRATEGIC DECISION 3: TURN FEEDBACK INTO PRODUCT STRATEGY
The Challenge
Traditional user research often happens at the beginning of a project and then fades away once development begins. In a product as large and constantly evolving as Citi's Commercial Banking CRM, that approach wasn't sustainable. New features were being released regularly, user needs continued to evolve, and valuable feedback often surfaced long after a project had shipped.
The challenge was creating a process that allowed user feedback to continuously influence product decisions rather than treating research as a one-time activity.
My Decision
Research didn't end after launch.
We introduced an in-product rating system that allowed users to evaluate newly released workflows and provide ongoing feedback without waiting for scheduled research sessions.
This transformed UX research from an occasional activity into a continuous product improvement process, enabling the team to identify patterns, respond more quickly, and build stronger relationships with users across the organization.
Why It Mattered
Moving from periodic research to continuous feedback fundamentally changed how product decisions were made. Rather than relying on assumptions or waiting for issues to be raised through management channels, the team gained direct insight into how users experienced the product after release.
This created a feedback loop that allowed us to validate improvements, identify emerging pain points, and prioritize future work based on real user behavior. Just as importantly, users could see that their opinions didn't disappear into a backlog—they became an active part of shaping the product's direction. Over time, this strengthened trust between users, the UX team, and the broader product organization, making research an ongoing driver of innovation rather than a single phase in the design process.
WHAT I LEARNED
"Users rarely become frustrated because software is imperfect.
They become frustrated when they believe no one is listening."
The most important lesson from this project wasn't about Salesforce—it was about trust.
Users rarely become frustrated because software is imperfect. They become frustrated when they believe no one is listening.
By consistently meeting with users, following up on their feedback, explaining technical constraints, and demonstrating visible progress, we rebuilt confidence not only in the product but also in the design process itself.
This experience fundamentally shaped how I approach enterprise UX today. Research isn't simply a discovery activity at the beginning of a project; it becomes significantly more valuable when it exists as an ongoing conversation throughout the product's lifecycle.
OUTCOMES
Rather than measuring success through a single release, the project produced long-term organizational improvements.
-
Established a continuous UX research program.
-
Improved collaboration between UX, development, and business teams.
-
Reduced friction across several high-impact workflows.
-
Increased user participation in product feedback.
-
Helped shift product decisions toward evidence gathered directly from users.
-
Improved confidence in the product team's ability to deliver meaningful improvements.
LOOKING BACK...
Looking back, I remain confident in the overall design process and collaborative approach that guided the project. The relationships built with users, developers, and project teams created a strong foundation for continuous improvement.
If I were to revisit the work today, I would focus on establishing a more sustainable cadence for user research. While the feedback sessions generated invaluable insights, organizing them across multiple regions and time zones was difficult to maintain consistently. I'd also invest earlier in lightweight feedback mechanisms that complement live research sessions, making it easier to capture ongoing insights without placing additional demands on busy users.
Finally, I would work even more closely with senior leadership to strengthen the connection between strategic business objectives and the day-to-day challenges experienced by individual contributors. The most successful improvements occurred when those perspectives aligned.