One design system for 40 brands
Built from scratch in 2023. Design tasks 56% faster, development 43% faster, across 40+ brands.
- My role
- Product Design Manager
- Team
- 5 direct reports · 8 matrixed ambassadors
- Duration
- 2023 to 2026
- Scope
- Gaming, sports, player experience · international markets
Context
The business problem
40+ brands, three product areas, six regions: the US, Canada, LATAM, Iberia, the UK and Germany. Teams worked in silos and duplicated work. Rollouts were slow and brands drifted apart. An older system existed, but a tech-stack change meant starting again from scratch.
Key decisions and what each one cost
Run the design system as a product
No one owned the system beyond shipping components. I set up the process: investigate, design, build, integrate.
Traded off: every product team had its own way of working, so each new PM needed onboarding, and the process kept adapting as we went.
Decentralise ownership
Market experts owned their slice; DesignOps owned the structure.
Traded off: less central control, more maintenance, fewer components built for one product.
Self-serve, not support tickets
Figma, Storybook, zeroheight, Jira and a video library, so teams helped themselves and DesignOps focused on delivery.
Who pushed back
Teams in emerging global markets. They needed speed and flexibility, and sometimes their needs were different from everyone else's. We brought them closer to the system.
Roles, never names.
Results, and how each was measured
| Metric | Result | How measured |
|---|---|---|
| Design task time | 56% faster | Timed task test, 12 designers, old libraries against the new system |
| Development time | 43% faster | Jira hours, 8 developers |
| Brands on one system | 0 to 40+ | Built from scratch in 2023 |
| Recognition | zeroheight Award for collaboration | 2025 |
Headline figures from the fifth system report
How ownership was split
DesignOps held the structure: tokens, governance, the toolchain and the reports. Eight market ambassadors owned their slice of the system and brought local needs back into it. Teams served themselves from Figma, Storybook, zeroheight and a curated video library instead of raising tickets.