Defining Strategic Design Vision for $1B+ Multi-Brand Integration
Leading design strategy for three major VPN brands to maintain competitive distinctiveness while enabling operational efficiency
I co-led the strategic design vision development for a billion-dollar brand integration challenge, preventing cannibalisation across ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access—three major consumer VPN brands serving millions of users globally.
Senior Product Designer
2023
Privacy & Security
Challenge
In 2023, the integration of three major VPN brands—ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and Private Internet Access—under a single technology platform created one of the most complex strategic design challenges in the consumer privacy market. With millions of users and hundreds of millions in revenue across the portfolio, the stakes for successful brand differentiation were enormous. The task at hand was to transform this complex integration challenge into a competitive advantage through strategic design leadership that prevents cannibalisation, accelerates product development, and positions each brand for targeted market growth and user acquisition.
Business Context
Brand Cannibalisation Threat: Without clear differentiation, the three brands risked competing against each other, potentially destroying millions in revenue and confusing millions of users about which product served their specific needs
Market Positioning Confusion: Each brand had developed different market positioning over years of independent operation, creating internal confusion about strategic direction and competitive advantage
Operational Inefficiency: Lack of unified design vision was slowing product development, complicating cross-brand feature development, and creating inconsistent user experiences
Design Context
Differentiation vs. Efficiency: Creating clear brand differentiation while maintaining operational efficiency and shared technology platform benefits
User Experience Consistency: Ensuring quality user experience across all brands while maintaining distinctive brand personalities and market positioning
Strategic Vision Creation: Developing a long-term design vision that supports business strategy while remaining flexible for market evolution
Role
As a Senior Product Designer, I co-led the multi-brand design strategy. I implemented evidence-based decision-making through systematic user research and rapid prototype validation, cutting through stakeholder opinion chaos and competitive panic. Streamlined complex stakeholder dynamics across global teams by establishing focused design critiques and transparent communication frameworks, enabling rapid strategic progress when speed was essential for business survival and technology investment justification.
Impact
3
VPN brands strategically differentiated
20+
Global team members aligned
5
Stategic design principles per brand defined
Collaborative workshopping.
Design principles for each brand.
Future scenarios for each of the brands to highlight key hero moments.
Key job-to-be-done.
High-level strategy to transform patient experience.
Snippets of concept prototypes.
Behind Closed Doors: Leading Through Business Crisis
The Engineering team's significant investment in next-level traffic routing technology demanded immediate results, while competitors were capturing market share in identity management, private browsers, and mesh networking. As the company's first exploratory design initiative, we faced intense pressure to justify the investment and respond to competitive threats—but stakeholder opinions were creating paralysis when we needed speed.
What I did to drive change:
I implemented systematic leadership under pressure: first principles thinking to cut through competitive panic and focus on real user needs across ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and PIA; streamlined stakeholder management to eliminate opinion chaos; transparent communication to unblock progress; and action-oriented prototyping to validate strategic directions with real user feedback rather than internal
Learning
Leading design under business pressure requires cutting through stakeholder chaos with evidence-based decision-making and user-centred thinking. When competitive threats create panic, systematic design leadership becomes the organisation's strategic advantage.