Lara Templemore-Walters

A visionary and strategic design leader with over 30 years of experience shaping world-class digital experiences and driving business growth through human-centred design. Proven ability to operate at a strategic level, acting as a key partner and deputy to senior executives. An expert in building and scaling high-performing design teams, establishing enterprise-wide design systems, and championing a culture of innovation. Combines deep technical expertise with exceptional stakeholder management to translate complex business objectives into elegant, impactful, and commercially successful user experiences.

CORE COMPETENCIES
Strategic Design Leadership: 
Aligning CX/UX strategy with executive-level business goals.

Chief Experience Officer and Stakeholder Partnership: 
Advising and collaborating with C-suite and senior leadership.

Team Building and Mentorship: 
Recruiting, developing, and leading multidisciplinary design teams.

Design Systems and Governance: 
Architecting and implementing scalable design libraries and standards.

Enterprise CX Transformation: 
Leading large-scale design initiatives in complex domains like banking and finance.

Agile and SAFe Methodologies: 
Certified SAFe Scrum Master, driving efficient and collaborative delivery.

User Research and Insights: 
Translating qualitative and quantitative data into an actionable design strategy.

Business Acumen:
13 years of experience as a Managing Director with full P&L responsibility.

Leading the Experience Design business unit at iqbusiness. Our team is dedicated to creating relevant and impactful experiences, combining business acumen, technology savvy, and creative talent to help our clients design products and services that are desirable, viable, and feasible. Our team is large enough to handle multiple large-scale experience innovation projects, combining Creative expertise, Business Acumen and Technology capability as needed to help clients innovate the digital experiences they provide various stakeholders.

Over and above:
* Design Lead for one of SA's leading banks in the Forex SWIFT International Payments and Remittance Payments
* Leading design teams to deliver the best customer-centred experience on various digital platforms.
* Direct the entire design team by defining process, principles, vision, and mission in addition to day-to-day mentoring
* Experience being highly accountable for design quality and project delivery
* Collaborate on designs with business and developers, and lead a workshop to drive delivery outcomes as a squad/team
* Be a hands-on design expert, shaping the concept and seeing it through to detailed design and implementation across a variety of devices and platforms
* Solid understanding of deliverables and the ability to take responsibility for them
* Able to focus on design detail and ascertain user value and impact as part of their software experience
* Demonstrated ability to translate research findings into complex interaction designs that provide usable, effective, and efficient experiences to users
* DesignOps, helping clients build out models on how teams work together, how teams get work done, and how to make sure the teams' work creates an impact
* Ability to build and maintain strong working relationships with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders
* Strong attention to detail
* Demonstrated ability to tell a meaningful story about the user and excellent presentation skills

• Master's in Product Design - Tech Global University 2025
• Certified AI-Native Foundations Professional by Safe Agile 2025
• Certified Scrum Master by Safe Agile 2021
• Diploma in Digital Marketing - Shaw Academy 2017