Mari Rezende · Strategic Design Partner · Financial Services

For financial services teams navigating complexity.

Or stuck in it.

I'm a fractional strategic design partner for growing fintechs and established financial institutions who need senior product thinking without the full-time commitment. Embedded, hands-on, pattern-aware.

Let's talk! See how I work
10+ years designing for
RBC CIBC Sun Life Brim Financial
How I help

Financial products are complex by nature. The real work is knowing where to look.

Most problems in financial products aren't what they look like on the surface. Teams invest in fixes that don't hold up because they haven't uncovered what's actually in the way. Solutions get layered on top of each other, disconnected from the real problem, and design gets treated as execution rather than strategy. Progress stalls, costs climb, and the cycle repeats.

I help leaders in financial services get to the root of the problem before building the solution. Peeling back the layers until we find what's actually in the way, so companies can move forward on solid ground.

After 10+ years designing for 16+ million users across Canada's largest banks and fintechs, I bring pattern recognition that comes from seeing how complexity plays out across different organizations, and the judgment to know what's worth acting on first.

How I work with you

Every engagement takes the shape the work actually needs.

If you already know what you need, we can jump straight to it. If you're not sure yet, the Pattern Audit is usually the right first step.

Experience Pattern Audit Start here

When you you don't know what's wrong

2–3 weeks · Flat fee

A focused review of one product area or flow. I look for the patterns that cause problems and deliver an Experience Pattern Report: what I found, what I'd recommend based on my experience, what's at risk if things stay as is, and what needs to be validated before building.

What changes
  • You'll know what's actually wrong, not just what looks wrong
  • A recommendation grounded in experience from comparable products
  • A confident decision about what to do next, and why
Get started
Project-Based

When you know enough to start

2–12 weeks · Scoped per project

A contained engagement focused on one problem worth solving. Not just designing a solution, but making sure the right problem is being solved, the decision-making is sound, and the work holds up after I'm gone. The scope stays protected as we go deeper.

What changes
  • The problem is solved with a clear rationale your team can stand behind
  • Decisions are documented so the work doesn't lose meaning when context changes
  • A sharper picture of what's next, without committing to it prematurely
Let's scope it
Retainer

When more things arise

3–6 months min · Flexible allocation

Complex financial products often have multiple problems and it's easy to lose sight on what should be a priority. I work as an embedded strategic design partner, inside your rhythm, present enough to understand what's shifting before it becomes a decision point.

What changes over time
  • Decisions get better because design is embedded in the process, not consulted after the fact
  • Problems get caught earlier because someone is always looking underneath
  • Your team builds confidence with a senior perspective in the room
Enquire

Something feels off but you can't quite name it yet?
We can figure it out together.

Let's talk
previous Work

Patterns found. Problems solved.

A global fund investment institution

Bringing clarity to a compliance process buried under its own complexity

The surface problem

Officers assessing investors against AML/KYC requirements were drowning in manual work. They switched between disconnected tools, took screenshots for audit trails, re-entered data across systems, and ran duplicate screenings without knowing a colleague had already done the same work for the same investor in a different fund. Two officers could be outreaching the same client for the same documents without any awareness of each other.

The pattern underneath

This wasn't a UX problem -- it was a workflow integration problem disguised as one. Every manual workaround was a symptom of the same root cause: the tool had no insights of what was happening outside of it. Fixing the interface without fixing the connections would have produced a nicer-looking version of the same broken process.

What I did

I led the experience alignment across a team of five designers over six months, ensuring every part of the solution connected into a cohesive whole while tackling key parts of the design myself.

Working closely with AML subject matter experts, we peeled off the layers of a deeply complex process to understand what officers actually needed at each step.

The solution integrated the tool with internal and external tools, automated repetitive tasks, and gave officers a 360-degree view of the entire process.


What changesd
  • Processing time reduced by at least 30%
  • Duplicate screenings and outreach reduced to almost 0%.
  • Officers gained full visibility across funds and colleagues
AML/KYC Enterprise UX Workflow integration B2B
One of Canada's largest banks

When the right answer was to not build what everyone assumed they should

The surface problem

The team had been tasked with building a Gen AI solution within online banking search -- a chat experience where clients could ask anything and receive AI-generated responses. It was ambitious, visible, and aligned with what the industry was excited about. But mapping every possible question and defining what the system should answer revealed an enormous undertaking.

The pattern underneath

The chat experience was duplicating existing flows in a new interface. Every self-serve flow would need to be rebuilt as a conversational interaction, doubling maintenance, testing, and points of failure -- in a regulated environment where getting something wrong carries real consequences. The technology was shaping the experience rather than serving it.

What I did

I challenged the assumption that it had to be a chat experience -- a question that initially met resistance. The pattern was clear: we were building a more expensive, harder-to-maintain copy of something that already existed, wrapped in a trendy interface.

I recommended routing clients to existing flows and improving those flows with AI-supported patterns where AI could genuinely add value, putting the technology at the service of the experience rather than the other way around.


What changesd
  • The chat concept was dropped
  • The team redirected toward use cases where AI could make a real difference
  • The solution was grounded in institutional constraints rather than hype
  • $2 million dollars spent on something that really worked
AI/ML Strategic reframing Digital banking Risk mitigation
About

Hi, I'm Mari. Your strategic design partner.

For the past 10 years, I've been designing financial products at major Canadian institutions, including RBC, CIBC, Sun Life, and Brim Financial. I've crafted solutions that help over 16 million people navigate their finances with clarity and confidence, while helping businesses grow with integrity.

I navigate ambiguity with curiosity, transforming highly complex problems into intuitive, cohesive, accessible, and scalable digital solutions. As a Senior IC, I bring pattern recognition across large user bases along with hands-on craft, not just direction from the sidelines.

I work as a fractional strategic design partner to bring that depth to companies that don't need a full-time design leader but can't afford to skip senior thinking either.

Financial services UX Pattern recognition Trust-driven design Regulatory-aware Digital banking Fintech Stakeholder alignment Design systems
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