Hugo Mejia — Director of Product Design | Design Leader

Who am I

Designer by trade, with over 25 years of experience across industrial, graphic, and digital design.

I have driven digital product delivery in close partnership with Product and Engineering while elevating design craft through large-scale transformation initiatives across SaaS and enterprise platforms. I’ve built a reputation for shaping 0-to-1 product strategies and translating complex user and business needs into scalable, accessible solutions that deliver measurable results.

Most recently at Scotiabank, I led the strategy, execution, and delivery for the Digital Platforms channel. My mandate covered the Web Banking portal, the Mobile Apps for Android and iOS, and Design systems; delivering platform experiences including product summaries, transactions, payments, self-service, settings and preferences, and the enablement of multiple other flows on web and mobile. We operated within a highly regulated environment with strict privacy, identity, security, and accessibility requirements (AODA/WCAG).

My goals are simple:

Build exceptional teams
Deliver clear, achievable product strategy
Create digital experiences that improve people's lives and help businesses thrive

0 Design organization spanning research, product, visual, service, and content design

0 Supported Product Squads

0 customers served in Canada

0 customers served in the Caribbean and Central America

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Leadership Philosophy

Teams are best supported by servant leadership

Design as a product development discipline rooted in empathy

Always prioritize outcomes over outputs

Design as a natural partner to Product, Engineering and Executives

Experience

OCT 2023 — OCT 2025

Head of Design Digital Platforms

Scotiabank

Led and scaled a multidisciplinary design team of 20 (Product, Research, Content, Service).
Owned the design vision and strategy for retail banking platforms and design systems, partnering with senior leaders across the enterprise to shape roadmaps, guide decisions, and embed design thinking into our CX and customer journeys.

FEB 2020 — SEP 2023

Product Design Director, Web and Mobile Digital platforms

Scotiabank

Directed the design strategy for core mobile and web platforms, defining multi-year product roadmaps across transactional and self-service flows, onboarding, settings and preferences, help and support, and inclusive design improvements.
Mentored and coached senior designers into lead roles by implementing a career progression framework that improved team engagement and retention, with minimal turnover over five years.

2019 — 2021

Product Design Director

Scotiabank Caribbean and Central America

Led the Digital Design vision and execution for regional customers, enabling 3.5M clients across 7 markets and 8 currencies to interact with their bank on web and mobile platforms.
Scaled a distributed, multidisciplinary design team from 3 to 12 members across Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica, including Product, Service, Content Designers, and Design Researchers.

FEB 2007 — MAR 2019

Previous roles

Scotiabank - Bell Mobility - Masterfile Corporation - Universidad de los Andes

Lead and individual contributor roles covering product design and strategy, UX research and service design across financial services, mobile apps design, e-commerce portals and public sites for education.

Case studies

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