Transforming Fraud Detection
Leading a cross-functional team to deliver £4.2M in operational savings through strategic design
Role
Lead Designer
Company
JP Morgan Chase
Platform
Saas, Salesforce
Focus Area
Enterprise UX
Background
When I joined the fraud operations team at JP Morgan Chase, I discovered our fraud specialists were drowning in inefficiency. They were constantly switching between multiple applications, manually calculating risk scores, and making critical decisions without clear data visualisation. The process was costing bank millions in unnecessary incentives and missing fraud cases that should have been caught.
The business challenge was clear: our fraud detection process was fragmented, slow, and expensive. Specialists needed 5-7 extra minutes per case just to gather basic information, and call handling times were 60-120 seconds longer than they should be. With thousands of cases daily, this translated to massive operational costs and frustrated customers.
More importantly, the lack of integrated data visualisation meant we were paying out incentives on cases that should have been flagged as fraudulent—costing the organization over £4M annually.
Approach
This wasn't just a design problem—it was an organizational transformation challenge.
I needed to align product managers, analysts, business operations, engineers, content designers, and researchers around a shared vision while managing expectations across multiple stakeholder groups. My strategy focused on three key areas:
1. Strategic Stakeholder Alignment
I started by conducting discovery workshops with each stakeholder group to understand their unique pain points and success metrics. The fraud specialists needed speed and clarity. Business operations wanted cost reduction. Product managers needed to balance feature requests with technical constraints.
Rather than treating these as competing priorities, I positioned the project as a business transformation opportunity that could deliver wins for everyone—faster decisions for specialists, cost savings for operations, and scalable architecture for future growth.
2. Evidence-Based Design Methodology
I negotiated timeline adjustments to ensure proper research phases, then conducted rapid user testing with five distinct user groups across different fraud detection scenarios. This wasn't traditional user research—it was strategic validation of business assumptions through real operational workflows.
The guerrilla testing approach allowed us to validate our hypothesis quickly: that integrated data visualisation could dramatically reduce decision-making time while improving accuracy.
3. Systems Thinking Over Point Solutions
Instead of just fixing the UI,
I designed an end-to-end data visualisation platform that integrated transactional and behavioral metrics into a unified dashboard. This required deep collaboration with engineering to ensure real-time data processing and scalable architecture.
The solution had to work within existing security constraints while providing the flexibility to adapt as fraud patterns evolved.
Leadership Challenges
Managing this project required sophisticated stakeholder orchestration. I was coordinating between teams with different priorities, timelines, and success metrics while ensuring the end user—our fraud specialists—remained at the center of every decision.
The key breakthrough came when I shifted from managing individual requests to facilitating collaborative problem-solving. Instead of being the middleman between stakeholders, I created shared workshops where product managers, analysts, and specialists could see each other's constraints and co-create solutions.
This approach transformed what could have been a series of compromises into genuine innovation. One stakeholder noted my "proactive approach to managing expectations while ensuring everyone's input was valued"—which became the foundation for ongoing collaboration beyond this project.
Building Capabilities
Throughout the project, I mentored product managers, engineers while fostering a culture of continuous learning across teams. This wasn't just about delivering the immediate solution—it was about building organisational capability for future fraud detection innovations.
I established design critique processes, taught stakeholders how to interpret user research findings, and created documentation that would enable future teams to build on our foundation.
What I Learned
This project reinforced that design leadership at scale requires strategic business thinking, sophisticated stakeholder management, and systems-level problem solving. Success wasn't just about creating better interfaces—it was about orchestrating organizational change that delivered measurable business outcomes.
The experience taught me that the most impactful design work happens at the intersection of user needs, business constraints, and technical possibilities. My role as a design leader was to navigate these tensions while keeping teams aligned around shared outcomes.
Most importantly, I learned that building organizational capability is just as important as delivering individual projects. The frameworks, processes, and collaborative practices we established continue to drive innovation long after the initial launch.
This project exemplifies how strategic design leadership can drive enterprise transformation through cross-functional collaboration, evidence-based methodology, and systems thinking that delivers measurable business impact.
Impacts
Business Impact:
Annual operational savings
+ £4.2M
Operational Effeciency:
Faster decision-making per case
+ 5-7 mins
User Adoption & Success: Engagement with Fraud team
80%
