Peter Pesta — Head of Design | Product Design Director

Experienced in Design Leadership Experience Strategy Design Operations Org. Transformation

Peter Pesta is a Design Director with 20+ years building design practices that actually stick. Financial services, telco, and enterprise technology across Australia, Canada, and Europe.

Let's talk leadership

I build design practices that scale. Strategy, systems, and the culture that makes great product experiences repeatable.

I lead design at an organisational level. Not just making things look good, but building the systems, culture, and capability that make good design repeatable.

Over 20 years across banks, telcos, airlines, and enterprise platforms in Australia, Canada, and Europe.

I've built design systems that shipped across multiple flagship products, led design practices at Telstra, Rogers, RBC, and Great Southern Bank, and ran a consultancy that delivered 500+ projects across three continents. Solo and in teams. Startups and ASX-listed enterprises.

At Pepper Money, I'm effectively running design solo, owning end-to-end UX/UI strategy across four products, pushing a design maturity transformation across the company, and working directly with exec leadership on product direction. I think in strategy and execute in craft. Business fluency with genuine design depth. That's what "design-led" actually requires. Not just design-informed.

Right now I'm particularly deep in the intersection of AI and design leadership: how generative tools are reshaping what design teams actually do, what AI-native UX patterns demand from interaction designers, and how organisations can build real capability here instead of just chasing the hype.

Core competencies

Design Strategy & Vision

I define design direction at the product and org level. That means translating messy business goals, conflicting customer needs, and technical constraints into something coherent: a strategy that teams can actually build against. From product vision down to design principles. I set the conditions for good work to happen consistently, not just occasionally.

Design Operations & Maturity

The unglamorous stuff that makes everything else work. I build the processes, systems, and rituals that let design operate with quality at scale: design systems, research frameworks, critique practices, governance. The maturity roadmaps that move a team from "we figure it out as we go" to actually embedded, repeatable design culture.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

I hire for complementary skills, mentor people who want to grow fast, and build the kind of team trust that makes hard projects survivable. Cross-functional by default: product, engineering, marketing, execs. I've led squads of 5 and sat inside orgs of 30+. Both teach you very different things.

Stakeholder Engagement & Executive Communication

Design leadership is influence work, not just craft work. I translate design decisions into business language, present to C-suite without flinching, and build the kind of organisational buy-in that doesn't evaporate when a project gets hard. Getting design a durable seat at the table. That's the job.

Selected Work

A cross-section of enterprise design leadership: financial services, telco, retail, travel.
Detailed case studies (design system builds, transformation programmes, platform redesigns) are available under NDA. Just ask.