FOLARIN A FOLARIN
Product Design Director & Design Systems Lead
Lagos, Nigeria
Design leader who builds systems, not just screens. I direct product design for Kredete’s AI-powered, stablecoin-based cross-border money movement platform, a global company operating across multiple continents. After a decade across fintech and hardware in Africa’s underserved payment corridors, including West Africa’s first Bitcoin ATM, I focus on design leadership, systems thinking, and shipping for markets most tools weren’t built for. Currently pursuing an MBA and MSc alongside my role at Kredete.
Highlights
- Design lead on West Africa’s first Automated Bitcoin Teller Machine, driving a 52% adoption rate and cutting payment task time from 12 minutes to 2.
- Built and scaled Kredete’s design function through its $22M Series A raise, helping the platform process over $5B in transfers for 5M+ active users.
- Designed Gravv, standalone developer infrastructure for building on stablecoins, which has processed over $390M in its first 6 months.
Certifications
- Professional Diploma in UX Design, UX Design Institute (in progress)
- Human-Computer Interaction & Design Specialization, IDF
- Google UX Design Certificate, Google
Rome Business School, focused on scaling design and product organizations at growth-stage fintech companies.
University of Valencia, postgraduate study bridging design, technology, and business strategy.
Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH), advanced diploma in Communication & Liberal Studies.
- Own product design end-to-end for Kredete’s AI-powered, stablecoin-based cross-border transfer platform, plus its B2B spend-management arm Hinstantt and consumer money-transfer app Gravv.
- Lead and set the quality bar for a small team of designers and PMs, covering hiring, roadmap, and design system ownership.
- Designed Kredete’s AI Agent transfer flow: a conversational interface spanning K2K, international African corridors, domestic NGN, US ACH/Wire, and SEPA rails.
- Led a full v4 product critique and Home screen redesign across a nine-zone architecture, and shipped a subscription tier system (Free/Pro/Premium) powering Kredete’s AI assistant, Prael.
- Built an internal design operations tool, including a Kanban board, lifecycle pipeline, and AI spec generation, to run design work across five product surfaces on 14-day sprints.
- Led product design across Kredete’s consumer and B2B surfaces, shaping the platform’s design direction ahead of promotion to Design Director, Global.
- Partnered closely with engineering and product leadership to scale design practice through Kredete’s Series A growth phase.
- Joined Kredete as Senior Product Designer, contributing to the AI-powered cross-border transfer platform before being promoted to Product Design Lead within two months.
- Led two teams of 8 mid-level and 4 junior designers plus 3 interns across 3 time zones and 2 continents to execute 2 SaaS systems.
- Translated 98% of the interface to French for francophone markets, driving a 40% uptick in usage.
- Built the company’s design system, adopted across 3 B2B and B2C products in 8 African countries.
- Partnered directly with the African regional manager to shape the product for the region’s crypto market.
- Achieved a 95% customer satisfaction rating through ongoing user research and design improvements accounting for cultural nuance.
- Led a team of 4 developers and 4 designers to ship an accessibility feature that reached a 52% adoption rate.
- Introduced a language-selection feature enabling access for non-literate users, spanning 14 local and 27 foreign languages.
- Cut customer payment task time on the ATM from 12 minutes to 2, an 88% improvement.
- Translated user stories into a live working prototype while navigating an unexplored financial market.
- Designed high-fidelity prototypes that secured 100% stakeholder buy-in and resourcing from senior leadership.
- Designed and helped build a cross-platform service connecting students to affordable food, from concept through launch.
- Increased hourly rate by 30% over 12 months through skill development and successful project outcomes.
- Completed 20+ projects at a 4.8/5 average rating and a 100% client satisfaction rating.
- Developed user personas and stories for a platform onboarding over 6,000 African creatives.
- Shaped new features via wireframes and contributed a responsive nav bar and icon set to the design system.
A weather/climate exploration correcting how mainstream apps treat Nigeria as one solar-time zone, despite its longitudinal spread.