DV Faces: Doralin Kelly, Senior Experience Designer, Singapore
“I chose a career at Digital Ventures because it’s the perfect place for me to build zero-to-one ventures across a diverse range of industries with really talented people from different disciplines.”
Meet the world-class talent building the game-changing businesses of the future.
At BCG Digital Ventures, we’re shaping tomorrow one game-changing venture at a time. From ideation to testing and launch, building game-changing businesses from the ground up takes a spectrum of different skills, a variety of expertise, and, of course, a lot of collaboration.
That’s where our talent comes in. BCGDV is home to a diverse community of high-caliber talent hailing from some of the most exciting companies around the world. Each of our multidisciplinary experts brings a wealth of knowledge and career experience, along with a unique perspective to each of our builds. Together, they’re creating innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges.
Our talent makes BCG Digital Ventures what it is today. In this series, we speak to our unique talents about their exciting career journeys, their unique BCGDV experiences, and why they’re passionate about creating the businesses that are changing the world.
BCGDV: Tell us about your unique background and journey that led you to BCGDV.
A: I started my career as a digital art director in advertising and social media almost 12 years ago, and I fondly think of this position as the first step in my journey as an Experience Designer. After three years as a digital art director, I found my true calling, which is designing for tech startups and companies.
Freelancing and working remotely gave me the freedom to travel, and the opportunity to design solutions for different products and industries. I built a huge variety of platforms across e-commerce, enterprise, finance, insurance, lifestyle, and healthcare. I also worked with a range of clients from early-stage entrepreneurs to agencies and global corporations. All of this helped me to hone my skills as an Experience Designer and solidified my passion for building ventures from the ground up. This eventually led me to Digital Ventures Singapore, where I was able to continue creating impactful businesses, working with a startup mindset and with an incredible, multidisciplinary team.
BCGDV: Why did you choose a career at Digital Ventures?
A: I chose a career at Digital Ventures because it’s the perfect place for me to build zero-to-one ventures across a diverse range of industries with really talented people from different disciplines. At DV, there’s also a lot of support and opportunity to learn and grow with regular coaching, shared cohort learnings, and shared venture learnings.
BCGDV: Briefly describe your role and cohort at BCGDV.
A: Experience Designers are responsible for creating human-centered designs based on both customer frictions and business goals. We work to make insights and solutions tangible through a variety of research methods, such as user testing or lean experiments. We also collaborate closely with the Engineering team to guarantee technical feasibility as we build each feature. As a Senior Experience Designer, my role encompasses everything from facilitating testing, prototyping, and designing solutions from low-to-high fidelities to mapping out flows and information architecture.
BCGDV: What advice would you give to someone who is interested in joining your cohort? What are the three most important characteristics needed to succeed in your job?
A: Firstly, Experience Designers should be problem solvers. Their job is to seek solutions that meet both the user’s needs and the business’s goals, which requires an aptitude to learn and iterate. They should be able to draw conclusions from quantitative and qualitative research, and empathize with the user’s problems in order to build the best possible experience and solutions.
Secondly, they should be good communicators. Communication is at the core of every venture. We work closely across cohorts, like Product Managers, Engineers, and client stakeholders, so it’s important that Experience Designers are able to articulate the rationale behind their designs. Being able to actively listen and ask the right questions in order to gather impactful feedback during testing is also crucial.
Thirdly, they should be detail-oriented. Experience Designers need to be able to create a well-crafted end-to-end visual experience for each venture. A good eye for design and a high level of polish is necessary.
BCGDV: Tell us about a unique work opportunity you’ve had at BCGDV that you might not have anywhere else.
A: I’ve been able to work on really interesting domains on DV ventures, from building a smart carbon management and accounting platform to designing an entire supply chain for an agriculture tech startup. Not only were these unique problem spaces to solve for, I was also able to learn and grow my skill set by working with the rest of the venture’s extremely proficient team.
BCGDV: How would you describe BCGDV’s culture? Why are you proud to be a DVer?
A: I’m very proud of our culture. There’s something incredibly special and rare about working with highly skilled, diverse people who love building innovative ventures. We support each other through the challenges that come with our work, and friendships are forged in this positive environment. The heart and soul of Digital Ventures are the people and the big reason why I love coming to work.
To learn more about Experience Design roles at BCG Digital Ventures, visit our Cohort page.
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