PEPPER MONEY | Althea Coutinho

1 FINANCE

Grew user base to 165K in 1 year by designing India’s first financial wellness platform.

OVERVIEW

As the founding Product Design Lead at 1 Finance, I helped launch and scale India’s first financial wellness platform—defining the product vision, building the design team, and guiding the end-to-end experience. Our work shaped a new category in WealthTech, scaling from zero to 165,000 users in under a year. Grounded in behavioral science, we designed tools that made complex financial decisions simple, personal, and engaging.

IMPACT AT A GLANCE

165,000+ users onboarded, with 40% completing the full advisory journey—a key business KPI

4.7 app rating on Android and iOS through consistent, thoughtful UX

Featured in national media within 8 months of launch

Designed the look and feel of MoneySign®, a patented financial personality tool, completed by over 68,000 users.

ROLE

Lead Product Designer

DURATION

2.5 Years

YEAR

2022 - 24

Crafting the Product Vision through Strategic Design Leadership

Facilitated a 5-day design sprint with founders and key stakeholders to define a long-term product roadmap and validate concepts through rapid testing.

Led exercises like How Might We, Crazy 8s, and user prototyping to drive alignment across product, design, and engineering.

Building a System-Level Blueprint for Scale

Developed comprehensive cross-platform flowcharts in FigJam, mapping journeys across tax, investments, insurance, loans, retirement, and estate planning.

These became north-star artifacts, accelerating delivery and driving alignment across design, product, and engineering.

Unified multiple experiences—customer apps, advisor portals, plan generators, and admin tools—into a seamless ecosystem.

Crafting a Brand-Driven User Experience

Partnered with marketing, brand, and leadership teams to ensure every interaction reflected the mission: making money decisions simple and unbiased.

Brought behavioral science and user empathy together to create MoneySign®, a first-of-its-kind tool that made finance personal and engaging.

User Insights in Action

Embedded myself within physical financial wellness centers to shadow advisors and engage directly with users—informing iterative design decisions.

Used mobile/web analytics (heatmaps, click paths, time-on-page) to identify friction points, leading to redesigns that significantly increased appointment bookings.

What Made This Project Special

This was more than a product launch—it was the creation of a new category. We combined systems thinking, deep user empathy, and strategic design to build a platform that made wealth planning more human, accessible, and impactful.

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SAY HELLO!

Manchester, UK

Hello@AltheaCoutinho.com

Let’s connect and build something impactful together. Always curious, always caffeinated.

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Design System & Delivery Velocity

Established a modular, scalable design system in Figma, reducing UI build time by 50% and enabling a team of 12 designers to ship with speed and consistency.

Future-proofed components to adapt to evolving brand guidelines without rework, enabling fluid transitions from concept to code.

Crafting a Brand-Driven User Experience

Partnered with marketing, brand, and leadership teams to ensure every interaction reflected the mission: making money decisions simple and unbiased.

Brought behavioral science and user empathy together to create MoneySign®, a first-of-its-kind tool that made finance personal and engaging.

User Insights in Action

Embedded myself within physical financial wellness centers to shadow advisors and engage directly with users—informing iterative design decisions.

Used mobile/web analytics (heatmaps, click paths, time-on-page) to identify friction points, leading to redesigns that significantly increased appointment bookings.

What Made This Project Special

This was more than a product launch—it was the creation of a new category. We combined systems thinking, deep user empathy, and strategic design to build a platform that made wealth planning more human, accessible, and impactful.

If you found this work interesting, you might also enjoy:

Grew user base to 165K in 1 year by designing India’s first financial wellness platform.

165,000+ users onboarded, with 40% completing the full advisory journey—a key business KPI

4.7 app rating on Android and iOS through consistent, thoughtful UX

Featured in national media within 8 months of launch

Designed the look and feel of MoneySign®, a patented financial personality tool, completed by over 68,000 users.

Crafting the Product Vision through Strategic Design Leadership

Facilitated a 5-day design sprint with founders and key stakeholders to define a long-term product roadmap and validate concepts through rapid testing.

Led exercises like How Might We, Crazy 8s, and user prototyping to drive alignment across product, design, and engineering.

Building a System-Level Blueprint for Scale

Developed comprehensive cross-platform flowcharts in FigJam, mapping journeys across tax, investments, insurance, loans, retirement, and estate planning.

These became north-star artifacts, accelerating delivery and driving alignment across design, product, and engineering.

Unified multiple experiences—customer apps, advisor portals, plan generators, and admin tools—into a seamless ecosystem.

Crafting a Brand-Driven User Experience

Partnered with marketing, brand, and leadership teams to ensure every interaction reflected the mission: making money decisions simple and unbiased.

Brought behavioral science and user empathy together to create MoneySign®, a first-of-its-kind tool that made finance personal and engaging.

User Insights in Action

Embedded myself within physical financial wellness centers to shadow advisors and engage directly with users—informing iterative design decisions.

Used mobile/web analytics (heatmaps, click paths, time-on-page) to identify friction points, leading to redesigns that significantly increased appointment bookings.

What Made This Project Special

This was more than a product launch—it was the creation of a new category. We combined systems thinking, deep user empathy, and strategic design to build a platform that made wealth planning more human, accessible, and impactful.

If you found this work interesting, you might also enjoy:

Manchester, UK

Hello@AltheaCoutinho.com

Let’s connect and build something impactful together. Always curious, always caffeinated.

Design System & Delivery Velocity

Established a modular, scalable design system in Figma, reducing UI build time by 50% and enabling a team of 12 designers to ship with speed and consistency.

Future-proofed components to adapt to evolving brand guidelines without rework, enabling fluid transitions from concept to code.

Crafting a Brand-Driven User Experience

Partnered with marketing, brand, and leadership teams to ensure every interaction reflected the mission: making money decisions simple and unbiased.

Brought behavioral science and user empathy together to create MoneySign®, a first-of-its-kind tool that made finance personal and engaging.

User Insights in Action

Embedded myself within physical financial wellness centers to shadow advisors and engage directly with users—informing iterative design decisions.

Used mobile/web analytics (heatmaps, click paths, time-on-page) to identify friction points, leading to redesigns that significantly increased appointment bookings.

What Made This Project Special

This was more than a product launch—it was the creation of a new category. We combined systems thinking, deep user empathy, and strategic design to build a platform that made wealth planning more human, accessible, and impactful.

If you found this work interesting, you might also enjoy:

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