KelvinMutiso., Senior Product Designer
A senior product designer who trained in computer science and came to design as a way of thinking.
- Now
- Leading UX for Financial Services, Safaricom
- Studied
- BSc Computer Science, Riara University · Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) · IDEO · Harvard ManageMentor · VISA University
- Mentoring
- ADPList · KamiLimu · Zindua · GDG · UX@Saf · NIA · Power Learn Project
Professional journey
I thought I'd be an engineer.
I started with machines. A fascination with how computers work took me through a BSc in Computer Science at Riara University, First Class Honours. Then I joined KamiLimu and met designers and creatives who saw design as a way of thinking, not decoration. That settled it.
Two stops shaped how I work today.
At Kwara, I designed digital banking for SACCOs, reworking the flows that move members between cash and digital money for the first time. Trust, in that context, isn't a brand attribute. It's whether someone is willing to put money into something they can't physically see.
At Safaricom, I lead UX for Financial Services at M-PESA. Decisions made in Figma ship to people on every income level, every device, every literacy and language gradient.
Money products that meet people where they are.
Designing for a feature phone and a smartphone in parallel. Naming dignity as a constraint, not a nice-to-have. Listening to users whose financial lives are usually designed around, not for.
Research surfaced in rooms it usually doesn't reach.
PRDs that haven't talked to a user. Engineering decisions that quietly shape who gets included. Roadmap conversations where the assumed default user is the one who'd be hardest to lose.
Right now I'm thinking about how AI and agentic design will reshape financial products for emerging markets. There's a version that further excludes the people I work for; there's a version that finally includes them.
I drive. Long stretches of Kenyan road.
Alone or with one person, no destination required. Quieter than a notebook, more honest than a meeting. The best design problems I've worked on were either started or finished behind a steering wheel.
Most of the leverage I have as a designer comes from getting the user's perspective into the right conversations early.