Download PDF ← back to site

Dimitris Kontaris

Director of UX Design

London, UK  ·  dimitris.kontaris@icloud.com  ·  dimitris-kontaris.com  ·  linkedin.com/in/dimitriskontaris

Profile

Design executive with 17+ years in fintech, banking, and regulated enterprise software. Currently leading a 70-person UX organisation across London, Vancouver, and New York at Global Relay. Track record of scaling design organisations (London studio from 5 to 40 with 93% retention), raising organisational UX maturity, and leading AI adoption across the design function. Shipped award-winning products at HSBC and Thomson Reuters. Co-inventor on a US patent; published ACM researcher.

Experience

Director of UX Design, Global Relay

Communication compliance technology for global financial institutions  ·  London

Lead a 70-person UX organisation spanning UX, UI, Research, Design Systems, and DesignOps across three sites, covering the company's three core product lines. Report into the Chief Design Officer and deputise on selected executive responsibilities.

  • Scaled the London studio from 5 to 40 designers, hiring and developing a full management layer, with 93% team retention.
  • Raised organisational UX maturity by a full level on the Nielsen Norman Group scale, through defined governance, embedded research, and clear design ownership and sign-off across product lines.
  • Founded the Design Systems team and led the migration to a new design system, reducing fragmentation and design rework across products.
  • Author and lead the design organisation's AI integration strategy: pilot programme, tooling rollout and licensing across the team, and adoption scorecards covering design systems, accessibility, and AI usage.
  • Partner with Product and Engineering leadership on roadmap priorities and strategic direction; presented the organisation's product development approach to C-suite stakeholders.
  • Redesigned hiring and performance frameworks, raising the consistency and quality of senior design hires across sites.
  • Co-inventor on a gesture-based system for searching electronic records; US Patent Application 2024/0143598 A1, assigned to Global Relay Communications Inc.

Head of User Experience, HSBC UK

London  ·  promoted from Digital Product UX & Design Lead

Led design of HSBC Kinetic, HSBC's mobile-first commercial banking platform, from concept to market launch across iOS, Android, and Web.

  • Built, grew, and led a 20-person multidisciplinary team of UX and visual designers, copywriters, and researchers; several have gone on to lead their own teams.
  • Kinetic launched to a 4.8/5.0 App Store rating from 22,000+ reviews and won Best Mobile Initiative for Business at the Banking Tech Awards.
  • As Digital Product UX & Design Lead, owned end-to-end experience and service design for international customer onboarding and account opening across Web and iOS, establishing the research operating model and information architecture while managing senior business and digital stakeholders.

Senior Interaction Designer, Thomson Reuters

London

  • Led experience design for the Eikon trading platform's core, most-used applications, including the redesign of its flagship app.
  • Established responsive design standards for the platform, driven by analytics and behavioural data.

Senior User Experience Consultant, Accenture

London

  • Led UX engagements across finance, government, and energy for high-profile enterprise clients; scoped, pitched, and won seven-figure programmes.

UX Architect, RedKite Financial Markets → Senior UX Architect, NICE Actimize

London

  • Joined NICE Actimize through the RedKite acquisition as part of the product leadership team; led UX for the flagship compliance case-management platform and embedded user-centred design in the development process.

Earlier career: User Experience Researcher, Sony CEE  ·  UX Designer & Developer, CosyLab  ·  Teaching Assistant, University of Piraeus

Education

Patents & Publications