120K
Sports Corner · Monthly active
Monthly active customers in 2024; 29% paid a merchant within 24 hours of using it.
DESIGN LEADER · FINTECH · FRACTIONAL & INTERIM
I build the teams and systems behind better product decisions.
10+ years in fintech and payments. I help teams fix product quality, consolidate design systems and bring AI into design — as a fractional, interim or project-based design lead.
Available for fractional, interim and project-based design leadership.
Selected results
293K
Free to Play · Active customers
Active customers after the June 2024 launch, with a 2–4% retention lift in peak events.
+13%
Wallet home · Exchange
Monthly exchange transactions up, take rate held.
4 → 1
Design systems
Four separate systems brought into one shared foundation.
146K+
NPS responses
A three-brand NPS programme fed customer evidence into product decisions.
10M+
Rebrand reach
Users reached by the three-brand rebrand, across Paysafe platforms.
Selected work
Evidence of how design leadership, customer evidence and systems turn into clearer decisions and measurable product outcomes.
If your design team is stretched
A shared quality bar across four brands
IC to Senior Manager · 7 years · a blended team of up to eight
From design-system craft to Senior Manager: the people, practices and quality standards behind design across Paysafe’s four consumer brands.
Read the leadership case →
If you need engagement without risking trust
Sports Corner & Free to Play
120K monthly active customers · 29% paid within 24 hours
Sports engagement as a destination people returned to — without compromising payments clarity.
Read the Sports Corner case →
If conversion or trust is leaking
Where customers decide to trust a wallet
+13% exchange volume · 29 registration issues found, 5 critical
Two moments where a wallet earns or loses trust: finding money on the home screen, and getting through registration.
Read the trust case →
If your design system is fragmented
Four design systems, one foundation
4 → 1 systems · rebrand to 10M+ users across Paysafe platforms
A shared foundation across Skrill, Neteller, PaysafeCard and PaysafeCash, and the rebrand it made possible, delivered on schedule by two designers fully dedicated to the rebrand.
Read the design system case →
If you want AI in design, with checks
How AI changed the way a design team works
PRD review, quality checks and customer-feedback synthesis, built into the team’s work
Reusable AI tools and clear human checkpoints, so AI raised the quality of how we understood customers as well as the speed.
Read the AI case →Ways to work together
Fractional leadership, interim cover or a project
Fractional · Interim
Lead design part-time or through a gap
One to three days a week, or full cover while you hire. Seven years at Paysafe, from design-system designer to Senior Manager, leading a blended team of up to eight across four consumer brands.
See how I work →Project-based
Bring me in for a problem
- UX quality audit of a critical journey · 2–4 weeks
- Design-system consolidation · 4–8 weeks
- AI in your design process · 2–4 weeks
From colleagues
How people experience working with me
Recommendations from product and design colleagues at Paysafe, on LinkedIn. Read them in full →
“She doesn’t just manage designers, she shapes how design connects to broader product outcomes, building experience architecture and design systems that scale across complex, high-stakes consumer products. Her cross-functional leadership makes collaboration between design and product genuinely easy.”
“Diyana has this rare superpower: she’s a perfectionist who somehow still trusts people to make their own calls. … Diyana does both at once, and it’s what makes working under her guidance genuinely empowering.”
“She understands how people, systems, and product decisions need to work together, bringing structure and intention to the way our team moves forward. … I would recommend Diyana to any organization seeking a strategic design leader who can guide a team toward the future while genuinely caring for the people she leads.”
“During my time there, I saw her successfully improve the UX team’s maturity and was constantly advocating for the UX values across the company.”
About
Design leadership for products where trust is the product.
I turn complex payments products and organisations into coherent experiences, aligned teams and measurable outcomes — connecting customer evidence, product strategy and design capability so better decisions stick.
Over seven years at Paysafe I progressed from design-system craft to senior design leadership across Skrill, Neteller, PaysafeCard and PaysafeCash. Early training in fashion, graphic and interior design still shapes how I structure complex flows and journeys people move through.
01
Products people understand and trust
From onboarding, KYC and money movement to cards, local payments, rewards and engagement: experiences that make financial products feel safer, more understandable and easier to use.
02
Teams that grow when capacity is thin
Building design teams, developing talent, integrating external partners and creating alignment across competing priorities through shared expectations and thoughtful challenge.
03
Systems that make quality scalable
Design systems, research practices, accessibility standards and shared ways of working that help organisations move with greater consistency, without replacing human judgement.
Design Ops
Making product quality repeatable
I build the operating structures around the craft — readiness gates, written standards and team rituals that make quality easier to inspect, discuss and sustain.
Product Quality Systems · 01
UX Quality Bar
The written standard I use to review trust-critical product work — free to use with your team.
Career
Experience
A fuller written CV is available online or as a PDF.
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Senior Manager, Product Design
Consumer digital wallets and eCash · Skrill · Neteller · PaysafeCard · PaysafeCash
Led product design across Paysafe’s consumer wallet and eCash portfolio with a blended team of up to eight, partnering with Product and Engineering leadership on conversion, engagement, trust and delivery decisions grounded in customer evidence. Led a structured handover of 50+ live initiatives when Paysafe wound down its in-house consumer design team.
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Product Design Manager · Digital Wallets
Consumer product design · Skrill · Neteller · PaysafeCard · PaysafeCash · Global Design System
Unified design across four product lines — onboarding and KYC, P2P and gifting, deposits and withdrawals, cards and engagement. Led multi-brand rebranding, accessibility, Voice of Customer, design-system development and hiring under capacity constraints.
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Lead Product Designer
Consumer fintech · Skrill and Neteller wallet experiences
Led end-to-end UX across home, navigation, money movement, exchange, cards and rewards, turning payment logic into clearer customer journeys. Established review practices, early design-system foundations and mentorship that helped designers grow into greater ownership.
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UX Designer · Design Systems
Consumer wallet consistency across Paysafe products
Established reusable components, visual standards and interaction patterns that improved coherence across multiple wallet experiences and created foundations for design at scale.
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Senior UX Designer
Digital banking · Insurance · Investment platforms · Amsterdam and Sofia
Designed complex financial journeys for white-label banking, insurance and investment products. Worked closely with product and engineering on interaction patterns, design reviews and experience standards for regulated digital services.
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Web Designer
Financial services platforms · Responsive product interfaces
Designed interfaces and visual systems for financial-service platforms, establishing the craft foundation that led to deeper UX ownership across regulated products.
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Web Designer & Front-end Developer
Digital media · Agency products · High-traffic publishing
Designed and built digital experiences for publishing platforms, brands and broadcasters, working across layout, interaction and front-end implementation under real production constraints.
Background
Education
01
Plovdiv · Bulgaria
Professional High School of Clothing “Ana May”
Fashion Design
Secondary vocational education
2000–2005
02
Sofia · Bulgaria
New Bulgarian University
Bachelor’s · Interior Design
Second specialty · Graphic Design
2008–2012
03
Palma de Mallorca · Spain
Escola Superior de Disseny de les Illes Balears
Erasmus Exchange · Interior & Graphic Design
Final semester
2012
Mentoring
One-to-one for designers stepping up
I mentor designers one-to-one on portfolio thinking, CV positioning and moving into senior and leadership roles. Paid sessions.
Get in touch
Let’s work together
A project, a fractional role or interim design leadership — tell me what you need. I work fully remotely from Sofia (CET). Also open to the right fully remote leadership role.
Fractional and project-based: UX quality audits, design-system consolidation, interim design leadership and AI in the design process. See how I work →