The Visionary Mind of Celina Cabral: Pioneering Design and Technology Integration

Celina Cabral navigates the intersection of design and technology with the grace of a seasoned explorer and the eye of an artist. A Brazil-born creative lead with over 15 years of industry experience, Celina has carved out an impressively multidimensional career that melds user experience, branding, business innovation, and technology into an electrifying whole. As product lead for Intergiro, a cutting-edge Swedish fintech company recently recognized as one of Europe's hottest startups, she brings her unique vision to the frontier of business banking experience design.

Celina’s transformative journey began in the bustling epicenter of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she leapt headfirst into the city's thriving retail industry. Working with established fashion brands, her versatile roles spanned from branding projects to product art direction and design management. As the industry evolved, she expertly navigated the swell of e-commerce and digital initiatives.

The next significant pivot in Celina's career was ignited by a family decision to relocate to Lisbon, Portugal. Here, she leveraged her substantial design and tech experience to begin independently assisting early-stage companies and tech leads. She became a conduit, bridging the design-technology gap she saw emerging, and, in the process, helping to shape their visions and products.

An enthusiast of minimalism, an art addict, and inspired by Bauhaus, Celina, a graduate in Industrial Design, sees design as a powerful catalyst for change. She believes it can transform human interaction, morph brands into more meaningful experiences, and mold innovative business models.

In her current role at Intergiro, she leads cross-team initiatives for business banking products and crafts strategies for customer-facing products. She also provides design and technology consulting services as the founder of Grid Space, a UK-based agency. Prior to this, she made a significant impact on the blockchain solutions landscape as a UI/UX consultant for Jita Ltd, and nurtured the next generation of female tech talent as a UX/UI design teacher at She Codes.

Celina's love for design transcends borders and industries. In every endeavor, she embodies the creative dynamism that lies at the heart of the digital future, shaping the intersection of form and function in the tech realm. This week, in conversation with Machinelab...

Celina, as a designer, what drives and inspires you to continue pushing boundaries in the design industry?

Designers are not just mere problem-solvers. We are dedicated to making life easier for everyone in several aspects that begin before you even think there’s a problem. We are observers of the world around us. What truly excites me is the ability to view things from a different perspective and uncover connections that can revolutionize our perception of things - and even anticipate problems sometimes. Our work revolves around addressing people's pain points, frustrations, and finding ways to alleviate the cognitive burdens they face in their daily lives. Ultimately, my greatest satisfaction comes from creating seamless experiences that bring about moments of delight, fulfilment, and pleasure. Who wouldn’t like that?

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With your extensive experience working with startups, scale-ups, and established brands, what are some common design challenges you often encounter, and how do you approach solving them?

The first challenge is finding the right strategy or readapting it quickly. Most companies are not sure what problem they are even trying to solve. This is the first challenge I usually face, but in this role it is essential to add your contribution to help find the direction or be ready to readapt your work when the winds change.

Then the second challenge you generally have is how can you solve these problems in the hackiest, most minimalistic way possible. Startups and even established brands live in a fast-paced environment where you need to ship products very quickly in order to survive. Overcoming these challenges and understanding that you won't always have the time and resources to make the most perfect solution, but at least you did enough for the product to succeed in its first phases is one thing that can be hard.

‍Can you share a project or design problem that you found particularly challenging or interesting? How did you overcome it?

Working with any finance-related product can be very challenging. The truth is that there is a lot of hard work, a lot of MVPs, failures and a long way to go to achieve a high quality product design with a seamless user experience. It is a fact that any digital finance product works under a highly regulated framework due the nature of this industry. At the backend we need to deal with lots of compliance requirements, security aspects and several steps to make sure the user is aware of what they are doing and doing it in the most reliable, compliant way possible. 

But in the end, all of this should not become bureaucratic and full of friction. This is my daily challenge. The magic happens when you are able to overcome these multiple requirements and make something almost unnoticeable and naturally part of the flow. This is only possible with collaborative work among different areas of the business, when we bring different knowledge to the table, spend hours of discussions brainstorming and draft solutions.

Also adding here that dealing with money flows is a high tension load for any person - the fear of doing something wrong, the lack of trust ('where did my money go?,' 'how much am I paying?') and especially now, where fraud attempts are cropping up everywhere, you feel that your work as a designer is essential to build smooth, confident, hassle-free and transparent user journeys through these products.

In your role as a Product Lead at Intergiro, how do you combine your expertise in User Experience, Product Development, Service & Business Innovation, Technology, and Design to create meaningful solutions?

I usually mix my multidisciplinary background to close the loop in the entire product journey. Starting from strategy, it’s important to be involved in conversations with your executives and know the direction you’re able to take in the product. At the same time, I’m constantly looking at product data and collecting the user's feedback - which I think is needed to make sure you are covering your user's expectations while still filling the business expectations. Then learning about the tech solutions your team is proposing - how to balance the complexity, understand how you can contribute and build these solutions together with the end user in mind? And lastly, it’s important to be involved in product distribution channels such as sales and marketing to make sure the product is clearly communicated outside and see how it can be better perceived.

How do you ensure that the brand vision of the companies you work with are effectively translated into their digital products or service offerings?

‍This should start internally first. Your team needs to clearly understand what you are trying to do and why you are doing it. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Great ideas come from all places in the business if everyone feels that they can contribute to it.

Then the rest is about collecting as much product data as you can - product usage behavior, direct users’ feedback, product reviews, interviews to support and validate features we ship. Then match it with business numbers to check how the product is working in practice, in terms of user retention, revenue, etc. Also, lots of questions will appear, like, 'according to what we got, are we still on track with the company vision?' 'Where is this leading to?' 'Are there any areas that need improvement or opportunities we can explore?' These are important questions you need to constantly ask to make sure your vision is effectively being put into practice.

‍What are some emerging trends or technologies in the design industry that you find exciting or that you believe will have a significant impact in the near future?

‍I think the latest advances in technology such as AI plus the rise of more democratic design tools that allows anyone to design things without actually being a designer are quite interesting. I don’t see them as a threat at all, but I think this just supports what I have always advocated for: that designers should not be a specialist job. These tools are enabling a lot of work automation that was previously required in our daily routine.  Solution execution now becomes one step behind being deeply involved with the whole process. We will probably see a big switch in the design industry - designers will become less specialised (for instance, working in a particular design area or subject) and will need to wear a wider lens to jump into more multidisciplinary roles, looking at the whole business strategy, vision and orchestrating the end-to-end user experience. Maybe we will see designers being less executors and more product orchestrators, playing different roles through the product design.

What methodologies or design processes do you follow to ensure a user-centered approach in your design work?

I would say iterative design mixed with a bit of design thinking. A design process where you continually refine and improve your product based on user feedback and data. This involves research, prototyping, testing, and incorporating user insights into subsequent design iterations. 

How do you stay updated and continually learn in a rapidly evolving field like design? Are there any resources or communities you find particularly valuable?

I follow some design communities that frequently share useful resources (too many to list!) and articles on Medium and Linkedin. But I’m quite interested in things outside the design world too - I subscribe to newsletters and follow articles about futurism and technology (things like Future Today by David Alayon, MIT Technology Review, and of course things around the fintech world). It's nice to see how all these things will at some point impact your industry. 

Can you share a memorable success story or achievement from your career that you are particularly proud of?

‍The fact that I could work successfully and independently for almost 5 years is something that has brought me a lot of lessons and experience. I was able to join many different projects - from complex blockchain projects to new business concepts. I was happy to deliver big projects alone while managing tech resources, partners and budgets. At some point, I realized I was doing work that a regular design agency usually does using a diverse team. This gave me multitasking skills and knowledge in different fields/industries that I still use today in my work. Of course, after some time, this framework was not scalable and brought me a lot of stress, so I knew when it was the right time to stop and focus again.

What advice do you have for aspiring designers who are just starting their careers and looking to make an impact in the industry? 

‍I would say that your work will never be finished. Whatever you ship, should not be set as the final version. Our life as designers is a constant work in progress, and we need to adapt to this flux. Get used to many imperfect launches, design failures, bad feedback and be open to criticism. This will make you grow as a professional and will keep whatever you are creating a meaningful journey. Stop waiting for things to be perfect to send out to the world, we should embrace imperfection as a way to learn. 

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Images courtesy of: Celina Cabral, Intergiro

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