# Ghazaleh Somerville

Lead Product Designer · Toronto area

Product designer with 15+ years in fintech and SaaS, currently Lead Product Designer at RBC in Toronto. I think in systems, care about craft, and like untangling complex problems.

## How I work

AI is part of how I work, from research and synthesis to interactive prototypes. I use Claude Code, Cursor, v0 and Lovable to test ideas in real code early.

## Experience

- RBC Royal Bank, Lead Product Designer, Sep 2025–present. Self-serve investing, from buying mutual funds to financial planning, in mobile banking.
- PartnerStack, Staff Product Designer, Apr 2024–Feb 2025. Redesigned vendor onboarding, making setup 15% faster.
- Plooto, Staff Product Designer, Feb 2023–Apr 2024. Built an MUI design system that doubled first-time payment conversion.
- Roofr, Product Design Lead, Feb 2021–Feb 2023. Led 0→1 subscriptions and onboarding through 150% revenue growth.
- Flexday, Senior Product Designer, May 2020–Jan 2021. A Figma design system for a React Native rewrite.
- Flybits, Head of UX, Sep 2018–2020. Scaled the UX team and built an accessible design system.
- Wave Financial, Product Designer, then Design Manager, Nov 2016–Aug 2018. Transactions Page redesign with a 40% efficiency gain.

## Focus

Fintech, payments, B2B SaaS, onboarding, design systems, human-AI products.

## Tools

Figma, Adobe CS, Framer, Webflow, WordPress, HTML/CSS, Tailwind, MUI, GitHub, Vercel, Supabase, Amplitude, Pendo, Hotjar, Maze, UserTesting, Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, Lovable, v0, Midjourney.

## Education

- OCAD University (Ontario College of Art & Design), Bachelor of Design, Graphic Design, 2004–2008
- Ringling College of Art & Design, Mobility program, 2007

## Tastemaker Daily

I also curate Tastemaker Daily, a twice-daily board of design from around the world: https://tastemaker-daily.pages.dev/

## Get in touch

- Email: gsomerville86@gmail.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ghazaleh