Product Design Leadership · Dubai
Product design leader. 16 years across fintech, crypto, and consumer products, built for 80M+ users, from 0→1 launches to scaled platforms. Seeking Head of Design & VP Design roles.
Impact
Perspective
Over 16 years I've lived in the gap between what a business needs and what actually gets built, and closed it. Crypto exchanges. Super-apps. Neobanks. Travel platforms. Regulated banking. Products that millions of people depend on, where the wrong call costs real money and the right one changes a company's trajectory.
I started as a front-end engineer. I know what it costs to build the thing I'm designing. That changes how I design. I scaled the design org at Almosafer from 14 to 25 people. I built Metro Bank's design team from the ground up. I led 11 designers across Careem's super-app. I delivered a neobank MVP at a top 10 crypto exchange that generated $7M in its first eight weeks. I've been the solo IC designing or writing code at midnight and the director in the room where strategy gets set. There's no part of this process I haven't owned, which makes me an influential collaborator.
Selected Work
Top 10 Crypto Exchange · Neo-Banking · 0→1 Launch · 2025
Blank canvas to five-market launch. $7M+ revenue in 8 weeks, 30K+ card orders, 6× weekly transactions. 0→1 product-market fit.
Careem (Uber) · Super App · Subscriptions · 2024
Data-led contextual subscription system. 150% subscriber growth, 96% retention, 4× service usage. Turned a declining metric into a growth engine.
Careem (Uber) · OpenAI · 2025
Rebuilt super-app search on OpenAI. +67% conversion, 94% intent accuracy across 10+ markets and 4 languages.
Metro Bank · UK Retail Banking · AI · 2018
Personetics AI insights. 2.4M+ insights delivered, 80% retention. Shifted average customer balance from negative to positive.
AI Track Record
Beyond the featured work: five more AI products across three companies, four industries, and seven years. From voice biometrics to LLMs to generative design systems.
Companies I've Shaped
These are the people who were in the room, they saw how I work, not just what I delivered.
"Few leaders inspire enough confidence to follow them from one company to another. Jay is incredible at making sense of business chaos for his design team."
Hakeeb Bashorun
Lead Product Designer· Careem & Almosafer
"What sets Jay apart is his rare combination of creative vision and practical execution."
Sam Rapp
Sr. Director of Product Design· Careem
"He is a role model for any design team, not only for his professional impact but for the way he leads with empathy and purpose."
Samantha Hamadeh
Product Marketing Manager· Careem
"If you get the chance to work with him, take it. You won't just improve, you'll level up."
Khussan Djabbarov
Product Designer· Careem
How I Lead
I don't design what looks good in a review. I design what moves numbers in production. If it doesn't trace back to an outcome, it doesn't deliver.
Most rework happens because someone skipped alignment. I make sure the room agrees on where we're going before anyone opens Figma. That's how you deliver fast without throwing work away.
I've left three companies now. Every design org I built kept delivering at the same standard without me. That's not an accident. It's the whole point. I hire people with taste and judgment, then give them the context to own it.
Not a talking point on a slide deck. A genuine competitive edge. Faster exploration, better decisions, less wasted time. The taste and judgment are still mine. The speed is multiplied.
Availability & Engagement
01
Actively seeking my next Head of Design or VP of Design role, full-time and in-house. Sixteen years across fintech, crypto, super-apps, and AI. I've stood up design functions from nothing, scaled teams from 2 to 20, and driven commercial outcomes at every level. I don't just hold the quality line. I push the business case for why design matters. If you're building something serious and need design leadership that operates at company level, I'm ready on day one.
02
I embed as your Director or VP of Design: setting direction, raising the hiring bar, managing stakeholders, and holding the quality line. You get full leadership without full-time headcount. Your team gets someone who's done this at Careem, Metro Bank, and beyond.
03
You're about to make a big bet: a product pivot, a platform rebuild, a design org restructure. You need someone in the room who's seen this movie before. Sixteen years of pattern recognition, on demand.
04
When you need the work done, not just the direction. Discovery, UX strategy, UI craft, and delivery through RUONALIM, my Dubai-based design studio. Backed by a network of world-class designers and developers, from blank page to production-ready.
Beyond the Interface
"The conversations most design leaders have in private, about politics, failure, and the stuff that actually moves a product forward. That's what this show is.", Listener review
Co-hosted with Warren Nugent. A podcast about what it actually takes to lead at the intersection of design, AI, and product. The conversations that happen after the meeting: shipping under pressure, leading through ambiguity, making calls that don't come with a playbook.
Guests include design directors, CPOs, and product operators from Booking, Careem, Metro Bank, and more. If you're building something that matters, this is the room.
Listen to the podcastBackground
I started building websites at 15. Got a BSc in Product Design from Brunel, then an MBA with a focus on Digital Banking from Cranfield. Somewhere in between, I stopped being a designer who understood business and became a business leader who happens to think in systems, interfaces, and user behaviour.
I've written production code. I've run design teams of 25+. I've presented to exec boards and I've pushed pixels at 2am. Front-end engineer, IC designer, team lead, design director, co-founder. It's the reason I can walk into any room, at any altitude, and add value immediately.
AI is embedded across my entire workflow. The taste is mine. The throughput is multiplied.