TASK

I joined Toyota Connected Europe in London to work on the global Toyota/Lexus companion app (multi-region, serving tens of millions of users across web, iOS, and Android). I led a large-scale Figma deployment and established the foundations for our design system governance with dev handovers and branching inside Figma.

I then moved to Toyota Motor Europe in Brussels where I led the European UX team responsible for the current in-market in-car multimedia system across all Toyota and Lexus vehicles in Europe (approximately 3.5 million cars) I owned two platforms simultaneously: the current in-market system (MM21/MM21+) and a legacy system (TAS600) being sunset.

I was responsible for UX strategy and feature delivery across multiple domains: Cloud Navigation, Voice Agent, Home Screen, multimedia playback, EV features, onboarding, privacy, and connected services. For the Home Screen domain, I also acted as Product Owner authoring Service Requirement Specification (SRS) and bridging design with product responsibilities.

One of the biggest challenges was designing a comprehensive EV navigation suite (dynamic rerouting, charging station planning, range indication, charge time integration) for a rapidly evolving technology landscape with significant engineering constraints.

Execution

I led a team of 2 UX designers and 2 UX researchers, managing performance, professional development, and workloads across all domains. We worked in Agile sprints, collaborating closely with Product Managers, Product Owners, engineering leadership.

I established design governance frameworks, quality standards, and review processes across all MM21+ touchpoints. Every major design decision was reviewed against automotive HMI best practices and safety guidelines. Research was embedded into our proces: I defined the strategic research agenda with our Senior UX Researcher, ensuring insights directly informed product strategy.

For the legacy TAS600 (Yarris Cross), I delivered the final feature set:

• pay-for-parking

• pay-for-fuel

• branded map pins

• with a pay-per-view revenue model

• in-car promotional campaigns displayed on POI detail screens (these were Toyota's first in-car commerce features directly generating revenue)

On MM21+, I introduced navigation and multimedia widgets to the Home Screen, redesigned onboarding flows to drive connected services adoption, and led the end-to-end EV feature set: charging time display, contextualised rerouting, power filtering, multi-stop charging, range improvements, and dynamic rerouting notifications. I also oversaw Voice Agent improvements, a subscription manager, live speed cameras, guest mode, user profile switching, and secondary device onboarding.

I facilitated executive-level presentations, led cross-functional workshops, and negotiated resources and priorities with product and engineering leads.

TOOLS USED

Figma, FigJam, Miro, Jira, Confluence, Axure RP, Zeplin, Sketch

MY ROLE

Lead UX Designer

Product Owner on Home Screen domain

DURATION

July 2021 – November 2025 (4 years)

SCALE

~3.5M vehicles/year · 3 platforms · 4 direct reports