Transforming a reactive design team towards being a strategic partner
When I joined STA Travel as Global Design Manager, the design team had real talent but almost no trust, either from the business or sometimes in themselves. Strained relationships with marketing. 30+ daily email requests with no process to manage them. Designers worked across four time zones and three continents with no shared culture, no digital design systems, and no one owning DesignOps (the operational support that keeps a design team running smoothly) to hold it together.
The role's focus was to improve design output. The real job was to fix how design functioned as an organisation. During my time there I helped build new processes, practices and psychological safety that turned a reactive team into a respected function. We (me, the head of creative and the studio manager) changed the company's perception of design from "they're always making mistakes" to "let's ask the designers."
Outcomes
• Team retention improved: designers stayed while others across the business left during a period of wider resignation
• Company mindset shifted: design moved from a cost centre towards a strategic partner
• Briefing process adopted company-wide across all eight global marketing divisionsIn-house animation capability added through a strategic hire, directly improving engagement on digital campaigns and the online platform
• Cross-departmental collaboration embedded through open studio days and joint project ownership
• Designers grew from hesitancy to confidence, actively driving reviews themself and stakeholder conversations
What I did
• Led a 15-person cross-disciplinary design team spanning UX, digital, brand and animation across three continents
• With others, oversaw the redesign of statravel.com, supporting £1B+ in annual revenue across eight global markets
• Established a icon brand language system and design standards, creating shared foundations for consistent, scalable output across digital, print and in-store (before the team had Figma)
• Delivered consistent omnichannel brand expression across digital, in-store, and print across all markets
• Built cross-team workflows with Marketing, Engineering and Brand
• Hired and developed design talent, including identifying skill gaps, writing job briefs and onboarding new team members
• Introduced team rituals, mentoring structures and collaboration practices that built psychological safety across a distributed team
After identifying the gaps, it became clear that the problem wasn't about design or the team's ability. It was about the company's mindset towards working with design as a function.
Problem:
The design team was drowning. 30+ requests arrived daily from eight global marketing divisions, covering event activations, digital product, retail, website, social campaigns, emails and airline deal updates. The Studio Manager was manually sorting an overflowing inbox, often accepting jobs without full project context. Design was being treated as a quick fix, not a strategic function. The root issue was simple: there was no process.
Solution:
I created an internal briefing document, a single tool providing transparency, visibility and repeatability across all divisions and project types. With everything in one place, the Studio Manager could prioritise quickly and designers could organise requests and flag impacts. I could focus on the larger cross-disciplinary projects that needed design leadership, not just design execution.
How I did it:
I drafted the template and presented it to the Senior Creative Director. I then advocated for it in monthly management meetings with Sales and Marketing Division Managers, making the case for better collaboration, efficiency and fewer errors. A two-month trial followed, with minor adjustments based on feedback. It was eventually adopted as the company-wide standard briefing tool across all eight divisions.
Problem:
The sales team and I had both noticed that emails and designs featuring animation consistently had higher engagement. But animation was a skill gap in the team. Some designers knew the basics, but workload demands left no one the time or space to develop the skill properly.
Solution:
I presented the challenge to the Senior Creative Director, and we worked through three options:
• Hire an animation designer
• Outsource the work
• Train one designer
Training felt risky given our heavy day-to-day workload. Outsourcing would need management overhead and wouldn't give us the investment and ownership we wanted. We chose to hire, adding the skill to our in-house team.
How I did it:
I led the full recruitment process with HR, from writing the job advert and interviewing candidates to onboarding the new designer into our multidisciplinary team. My approach to team building has followed three steps ever since:
1. Roadmap talent analysis:
identify the gaps slowing delivery, quality and user experience
2. Look internally first: understand existing strengths, weaknesses and motivations before going outside
3. Build the powerhouse team: develop talent where possible, and hire for gaps based on skill, personality and potential
Images credit: Jason Mesut
Problems:
Designers from different disciplines were working in silos, completing their part of a project before handing it over, rather than collaborating on the concept from the start. The eight global marketing divisions had limited understanding of what design did or how it worked. That gap created friction in both directions.
Solution:
I introduced monthly design team open days, informal gatherings where Marketing and Sales were invited into our workspace. We shared the strategic initiatives we were working on across brand, future retail experiences and the digital booking experience. I also introduced jointly assigning projects to both a content/print designer and a digital designer from the start, building joint accountability and creative consistency rather than siloed handovers.
What happened:
Interdepartmental visibility increased and friction reduced. Marketing felt included in the design process. Designers began seeking early sign-off at concept level, so direction was aligned before anyone invested heavily in execution. Designs became more cohesive and predictable across multidisciplinary projects.
Problem:
Talent alone doesn't make a great team. The designers needed confidence in their work, in their voice, and in their right to take up space in the organisation. That required consistent mentoring, thoughtful delegation, and knowing when to step back and let people lead.
Solution:
I introduced new rituals.
• One-to-ones in casual settings, such as parks and coffee shops rather than meeting rooms, encouraged open dialogue.
• Monthly non-work 'Show, Share & Tell' sessions bringing in inspiration from outside the industry and created connection across a team spread over multiple countries with different skill sets.
• Regular team-wide design reviews giving everyone a voice, not just the most senior people in the room.
What happened:
Trust compounded slowly: in me as a leader, among the team, and most importantly in themselves. One moment I remember clearly was watching a designer who joined hesitant and uncertain become one of the most reliable and respected members of the team. She started seeking feedback rather than waiting for it. She drove design reviews and brought ideas directly into conversations with marketing and sales managers. That transformation didn't come from process. It came from feeling safe enough to try.
Image credit: Jason Mesut
The real job wasn't managing a team of designers. It was changing the organisation's relationship with design. That meant balancing several questions at once:
• What does the business need?
• What does the customer need?
• What can the team realistically deliver?
• Where should design have influence?
• What needs to change now, and what needs longer-term investment?
Design moved from being a function that responded to requests to a partner in defining what needed to happen.
Personal Learning:
The most meaningful moment in this role came on my last day, when the designers told me individually what my support had meant to them: navigating conflicts, finding the confidence to present ideas, and feeling seen as creative professionals rather than a production resource.
This was my first official management title, and it taught me that design culture isn't something you announce. It's something you build slowly, through consistent behaviour, genuine investment in people, and the patience to let trust compound over time. The processes I put in place mattered. But the people who stayed because of them mattered more.
A video capturing the STA's open-minded spirit and ambitious nature
