About Rob Cowie
Senior Design Specialist, Absa Personal and Private Banking
Rob is a design specialist with over 25 years of experience, including 10 years at Absa, where he has shaped market-leading financial services solutions such as the first Absa Banking App, Absa Online Banking, Business Evolve, and Ultimate Banking.
Passionate about exceeding both business and user needs, he specialises in user-centred design, design thinking, and user experience – driving these disciplines through strategic initiatives, team building, and continuous innovation.
Rob shares his expertise widely through courses, part-time lecturing, presentations, writing, and speaking at conferences.
Talk topic
Designing Propositions: Getting Closer to the Source of Projects as a Designer
Designers are often brought into projects at the very end – tasked with ‘making it look good’ after the real decisions have already been made. This talk challenges that view, positioning design as a strategic capability that should sit at the core of proposition building.
When involved from the start, designers can shape a product or service. They can ensure that solutions are feasible, desirable and meaningful.
In this talk, Rob will share a practical perspective through his work on the Absa Business Evolve and Ultimate Banking products. He will explain how he managed to ‘move upstream’ while collaborating with product managers, strategists, technologists, and senior stakeholders to shape propositions tailored to South African users while staying aligned with global trends.
When designers get closer to the source, they move beyond simply taking orders and become true proposition-makers.