THE CHALLENGE

Inconsistent brand experiences across markets and digital properties

Philip Morris International operates across dozens of markets, each with its own digital teams and properties. Without shared design standards, brand experiences had drifted significantly — affecting consistency, trust and quality of execution.

The problem wasn't a lack of design talent. It was a lack of shared foundations and governance to align decisions made independently across geographies.

THE APPROACH

Governance protects long-term product quality

I treated governance not as a control mechanism, but as a service — something that makes teams faster by reducing the number of decisions they need to make from scratch every time.

Key Insight: Design governance only works when teams understand the 'why' behind the rules. Without that, teams work around systems rather than within them.

What I Built

• Global design system codifying brand, components and interaction patterns

• Governance model with clear decision rights across global and local teams

• Review and contribution processes for regional design teams

• Training and onboarding materials for collaborators, marketing & sales team across markets

• Scalable documentation strategy maintained as the product evolved