Azmina Poddar has been appointed Managing Director – Experience Design, Consumer & Community Banking at JPMorganChase. With leadership experience across Accenture Song, BCG, and IBM, she brings deep expertise in human-centred design, digital innovation, and scalable design systems to enhance consumer banking experiences.
In a move that reflects the growing convergence of design, technology, and financial services, Azmina Poddar has stepped into her new role as Managing Director – Experience Design, Consumer & Community Banking at JPMorganChase. The appointment underscores the bank’s focus on embedding design thinking and human-centred innovation at the heart of its consumer banking businesses, as financial institutions worldwide increasingly compete on experience as much as on products and pricing.
Poddar’s professional journey has been defined by a rare ability to bridge creative ambition with strategic rigour. Known widely in the design and innovation community as “Azyoulikeit,” she has built a career that spans some of the world’s most influential consulting and technology organisations, as well as multiple design leadership roles where creativity, user empathy, and scalable systems have intersected. Her move to JPMorganChase marks a natural progression in a career shaped by transforming complex challenges into intuitive, meaningful experiences.
With experience across Accenture Song, Boston Consulting Group, IBM, and independent design consulting assignments, Poddar brings a multidisciplinary perspective that few leaders can match. Each phase of her career has added a distinct layer to her approach to design—one that goes beyond aesthetics to address how organisations operate, how systems scale, and how people experience services in their everyday lives. This breadth of exposure is particularly relevant in the context of consumer and community banking, where trust, accessibility, and simplicity are central to long-term customer relationships.
At Accenture Song, where she most recently served as Managing Director and Chief Creative Officer, Poddar played a pivotal role in shaping creative and experience-led transformations for global brands. Accenture Song’s mandate to fuse creativity with technology and data aligned closely with her philosophy that design must be both emotionally resonant and commercially effective. Under her leadership, creative teams were challenged to think beyond traditional advertising outputs and focus instead on end-to-end customer journeys, digital platforms, and service ecosystems that could evolve with changing consumer expectations.
Prior to Accenture Song, Poddar held senior leadership roles at Boston Consulting Group, where she led Design Studios across the Asia Pacific region. At BCG, she was instrumental in building and scaling multidisciplinary design teams that worked alongside consultants, technologists, and strategists. This model reinforced her belief that design works best when it is embedded within business decision-making rather than positioned as a downstream function. Her work at BCG contributed to projects spanning industries such as travel, lifestyle, sports, and technology, each demanding a nuanced understanding of user behaviour and market context.
Her earlier tenure at IBM further deepened her expertise in enterprise-scale experience design and UX leadership. At IBM, Poddar was involved in driving UX excellence across complex technology platforms, championing design systems that could maintain consistency while allowing for flexibility and localisation. This experience sharpened her ability to balance innovation with governance—an essential skill in highly regulated and technologically sophisticated environments such as banking.
Throughout her career, Poddar has been a vocal advocate for human-centred design, emphasising the importance of empathy, inclusivity, and real-world usability. Rather than viewing design as a cosmetic layer, she has consistently positioned it as a strategic capability that can influence organisational culture, operational efficiency, and customer trust. Her work has often focused on creating scalable design frameworks that empower teams across geographies to deliver coherent experiences without stifling creativity.
This philosophy aligns closely with the challenges facing large financial institutions today. As consumer expectations are shaped by seamless digital experiences from technology and lifestyle brands, banks are under pressure to modernise interfaces, simplify processes, and communicate with greater clarity and warmth. In community banking in particular, digital transformation must be balanced with a sense of human connection and local relevance. Poddar’s appointment suggests that JPMorganChase sees experience design as a critical lever in achieving that balance.
In her new role, Poddar will be responsible for leading experience design efforts across consumer and community banking, an area that touches millions of customers and encompasses a wide range of touchpoints—from mobile apps and online platforms to in-branch interactions and support services. The scope of the role highlights the growing recognition that design leadership is no longer confined to marketing or digital teams but is integral to core business strategy.
Her transition to a financial services giant also reflects a broader trend of banks recruiting design leaders from consulting and creative backgrounds. These leaders bring with them an outside-in perspective, challenging legacy thinking and introducing design methodologies that prioritise rapid prototyping, continuous feedback, and cross-functional collaboration. Poddar’s background in leading global design studios positions her well to navigate the scale and complexity of JPMorganChase while maintaining a strong focus on user needs.
Industry peers have noted that Poddar’s influence extends beyond the organisations she has worked for. Through her presence in the design community, she has mentored emerging talent and contributed to conversations about the future of design leadership. Her career stands as an example of how creative professionals can evolve into strategic leaders, shaping not only how brands look and feel, but how they operate and serve people.
As she embarks on this new chapter, expectations are high that Poddar will help elevate the role of experience design within JPMorganChase, ensuring that innovation is guided by empathy and grounded in real customer insight. In a sector often perceived as functional and transactional, her mandate represents an opportunity to redefine banking experiences in ways that are intuitive, inclusive, and emotionally intelligent.
Azmina Poddar’s appointment is more than a leadership announcement; it is a signal of how organisations are redefining the skill sets required at the highest levels. By placing a seasoned design leader at the intersection of consumer experience and core banking operations, JPMorganChase is making a statement about the centrality of design in building trust, loyalty, and long-term value. For Poddar, the move represents the culmination of a career spent advocating for human-centred innovation—and the beginning of a new opportunity to apply those principles at unprecedented scale.
