Matteo Remondini

I joined BlueLayer during a growth phase when the product needed solid foundational structure and design leadership. Our team built the product while navigating the complex carbon credit market which required both hands-on execution and systemic thinking to establish sustainable design practices. The nature of my role evolved to encompass both leadership and strategic contribution across multiple areas. I helped establish solid product foundations in close collaboration with the CPO and CTO, while leading our small design team of two.

I drove key design decisions such as formalising the navigation architecture and building the design system - and led design initiatives from concept through to production, including creating low-fidelity prototypes, and conducting research sessions with customers. I designed complex solutions including an orders management system for carbon credits, and features aimed at manipulating projects data and sharing them with external stakeholders.

I joined the Taxfix team right at the peak of the tax season, when most individuals file their yearly submissions. The product could already count on a solid base of satisfied customers, and the team relied on a number of specific assumptions aimed at meeting ambitious growth targets for revenues and market share. My initial focus was to validate a new service offering with potential users before launching, and to support the design team enhancing the user experience of the product.

Over the course of the first few months, however, the team was met with several unforeseen external and internal challenges. These obstacles had the potential to adversely impact the Italian product and, as a result, the entire business.

In order to mitigate the potential risk, I switched my focus towards providing strategic guidance to product stakeholders, while leading improvements to work practices and mentoring less experienced colleagues. This included co-designing a vision and roadmap of initiatives, defining and running product experiments, and bringing people together across different areas of the business and helped the team getting back in shape for the following tax season.

The Department for Work and Pensions is tasked with addressing a plethora of intricate and multifaceted challenges that British citizens face on a regular basis. These challenges are often intertwined and layered, requiring a comprehensive and nuanced approach to effectively tackle them. Unfortunately, policymakers frequently lack the necessary resources, time, and freedom to develop original, impartial, and comprehensive solutions to these challenges.

To help overcome these obstacles, our team played a crucial role in establishing a dedicated Innovation Lab, designed to experiment with new and innovative methods of addressing these challenges, and finding novel ways to better serve the citizens of tomorrow. Over the course of several months, the Innovation Lab took on a diverse range of complex and interrelated challenges. These challenges included tackling the consequences of an ageing population and its impact on unemployment rates and addressing issues related to health and safety in the workplace.

Alongside a strong team of multidisciplinary experts, ranging from machine learning engineers to innovation directors, I leveraged Service Design to facilitate alignment among the various civil servant stakeholders. Through this approach, I was able to create a shared understanding of the goals, strategies, and potential implications of a high-profile project.

This was instrumental in establishing the Innovation Lab as a trusted and reliable partner for the department in tackling complex and interconnected societal challenges.