PRODUCT DESIGNER•FINTECH | CONSUMER | ENTERPRISE | GOVTECH

Mary Mbaire

Product Designer with 4+ years of experience designing scalable financial products across web and mobile. I combine strategic thinking with hands-on design to solve complex problems and drive impact. Skilled in research, product strategy, and cross-functional collaboration within Agile environments.

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Making sure the user's voice is part of the conversation early on.

Product Strategy: I align design decisions with business goals, working across teams to define direction and validate assumptions before building at scale.
Systems Thinking: I design UX patterns that scale across products and teams.
Usability Focus: I simplify complexity through intuitive patterns and clear information architecture, making enterprise tools feel effortless to use.
Thrives in Agile Settings: I facilitate product discovery within Agile sprint cycles, reducing decision cycles by 40–60% and streamlining design–developer handoff to accelerate product launches.

Selected work

From Innovation to Execution: Product Strategy and System Design

Selected case studies across fintech, consumer and enterprise platforms; leading strategy, product direction, design and execution end-to-end.

Multi-tenant RMSEnterprise Platform DesignWeb · Android · iOS

Multi-tenant Revenue Management System

A dynamic, configurable platform designed to support different revenue configurations and rules across counties, reducing engineering effort for new tenant onboarding by 80%

Role

Lead Product Designer

Scope

Product strategy, system design, pilot

Platforms

Web, iOS, Android

Overview

A configurable revenue management system designed to support multiple business units, regions, and counties from a single platform. Each tenant can model its own revenue streams, rules, and approval flows without custom code.

The problem

Revenue structures were complex, inconsistent across counties, and locked inside rigid or manual systems. Onboarding a new tenant required engineering effort, slowing rollouts and creating operational risk.

Responsibilities

Defined product direction and product strategy
Designed scalable, configurable UX patterns
Worked across web, iOS, and Android
Collaborated with engineering, business, and regulatory teams

Key challenges

Designing for multi-tenancy; different revenue rules, configurations and different counties
Balancing configurability with day-to-day usability
Translating dense regulatory policies into intuitive workflows

Impact

Dynamic

Revenue stream configuration without code

Multi-region

Scalable across counties and business units

↑ Efficiency

Reduced manual setup and operational overhead

CASE 02 · A RESEARCH-DRIVEN REDESIGN CASE STUDY

M-PESA App Homepage Revamp

Leveraged user research insights to drive UX strategy and redesign of the M-PESA homepage, improving feature discoverability and increasing engagement by 46%.

RESEARCH

User interviews, usability testing, and accessibility evaluations surfaced navigation challenges and usability gaps.

INSIGHTS

Users struggled to find key features due to a cluttered layout, unclear structure, and non-intuitive navigation.

DESIGN

Redesigned the homepage by simplifying the layout, improving information hierarchy, and prioritizing key user actions.

OUTCOME

A cleaner, more intuitive experience that supports faster task completion and improved usability.

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Before

After

+46%

adoption

Case / 03 | CONSUMER FINTECH

M-PESA Ratiba

Contributed to consumer-facing experiences for one of Africa's largest fintech platforms, focused on engagement, clarity, and trust at scale.

Hackathon Origin - InnovationFinancial EmpowermentCONSUMER FINTECH

M-PESA Ratiba began as an internal innovation challenge, of 5 UX interns at the time , and has since grown into a fully-fledged product, helping millions of users take control of their finances through a simple, reliable experience.

MY CONTRIBUTION

- As part of expanding the M-PESA ecosystem, I identified a gap in how users manage recurring payments, many relied on memory or manual workarounds, leading to missed deadlines and financial strain.
- I proposed and led the design of M-PESA Ratiba, a recurring payments solution that allows users to schedule and automate payments via USSD (*334#) and the M-PESA Super App.
- Led a team of 5 to design and deliver the end-to-end experience from idea to prototype

WHY IT MATTERS

Ratiba extended M-PESA from a transaction tool to a financial management system helping users not just move money, but manage it with control and confidence.

Impact at scale

Since launch

Customers adopted

3.8M+

KES transacted

~2B

USSD + Super App

*334#

View Full Case study

Case / 04 | ENTERPRISE PLATFORM

Sales Platform Redesign & Automation

Re-imagined the end-to-end sales funnel, across onboarding, pipeline management and order processing, cutting sales cycle time by over 65%.

FOCUS

Improving customer acquisition
Streamlining order creation
Automating manual sales workflows

ROLE

Led product discovery, IA and interaction design across web platform and supporting mobile flows

APPROACH

Mapped the existing sales journey, removed redundant steps, and introduced rule-based automation for repeat operations

OUTCOME

A faster, clearer sales funnel with fewer drop-offs and significantly less manual coordination between sales and operations

More work

Curious about my design process, take a closer look

VIEW CASE STUDIES

Background

From consumer scale to enterprise complexity

I spent my first 2 years at Safaricom PLC designing consumer products for millions of users, then shifted focus to enterprise systems where the real challenge lies in managing complexity without losing clarity.

My work sits at the intersection of strategy, systems, and interaction design. I've led design on multi-tenant enterprise tools and contributed to consumer experiences used by tens of millions of people.

I’ve redesigned digital experiences to improve usability and drive adoption, led research that informed product strategy, and worked in cross-functional teams to translate insights into meaningful impact.

Skills

Product Strategy

Product Strategy
Product Direction
Discovery & Research
Stakeholder Alignment
Roadmapping

UX & Interaction Design

UX Patterns
Information Architecture
Interaction Design
Prototyping
Design Systems

Tools & Execution

Figma
FigJam
Jira
Confluence
Microsoft Clarity

Experience

Safaricom

Recent

Product Designer — Enterprise & Consumer

Conducted user research with county government stakeholders and end-users, synthesizing findings to inform product direction, design decisions and system architecture.
Defined end-to-end product strategy and UX for myCounty Pay, a configurable multi-tenant Revenue Management System serving county governments across Kenya.
Redesign and optimization of the sales funnel across onboarding, pipeline management and order processing, cutting sales cycle time by over 65%.
Conducted usability testing on the M-PESA app to uncover mini apps adoption barriers and usability gaps that informed a redesigned homepage information architecture.
Translated user research insights into a UX strategy and homepage redesign for M-PESA, improving feature discoverability and driving a 46% increase in engagement.
Conducted user research to understand customer usage across M-PESA App and MySafaricom App, uncovering preferences, pain points, and adoption drivers to inform myOneApp product direction.
Conducted accessibility and inclusive usability testing with differently abled users uncovering critical usability gaps and informing more inclusive product experiences.
Innovated and led a team of 4 interns to design and build M-PESA Ratiba, a standing order solution adopted by 2M+ customers and generating over 2B in transaction value.
Facilitated product discovery workshops, design sprints and cross-functional stakeholder alignment within Agile sprint cycles, reducing decision-making cycles by 40–60% accelerating product launches.
Established a scalable design system and component library that accelerated delivery across web, iOS, and Android by over 32%.

Andishi Africa

Earlier

Product Designer

Collaborate with Andishi Africa founders and stakeholders to design their company profile website and a book app
Responsible for all UI design decisions to develop visually delightful and stimulating designs while following brand guidelines
Designing the end-to-end designs and interactions of Andishi Book App

Contact

Let's build impactful products together.

I'm open to conversation and collaborations across fintech, consumer, enterprise, and platform teams.

mbairemary49@gmail.com LinkedIn