TEAM GROWTH: Scaling a Design Org Without Losing It
5 to 24 at TD
TD Canada Trust, EasyWeb (online banking)
Role: Senior Manager, UX
Timeline: 4 years
Result: Team grew from 5 to 24 designers. 22 of 24 stayed.
The Situation
I inherited a team of 5 designers with no clear structure underneath it. Roles were ambiguous, work was duplicated across people who didn't know what each other was doing, morale was low, and the team thought in silos rather than as one practice. The existing management layer was made up of Sr. Mgr individual contributors, strong at the craft, not particularly interested in people leadership or team growth.
What This Shows
Scaling a team almost 5x is not really a hiring story. The hard part was sequencing: listen before restructuring, fix process before adding headcount, build management capacity deliberately instead of promoting the most senior designer by default, and treat retention as something you earn continuously rather than a number you hit once. Four years in, that's still the version of leadership I practice.
My Approach: Listening First
Before changing anything, I booked 1:1s with every new direct report and had separate conversations with their existing managers, my new peers, to understand what was actually happening versus what looked fine on paper.
The first real fix came out of that listening, not a reorg. I implemented mandatory bi-weekly standups where designers had to include screenshots of their current work. Simple, and it immediately cut down on duplicated effort, because people could finally see what everyone else was actually doing instead of guessing.
I kept refining process over the following year based on what I was hearing, before touching headcount or structure at all.
RETENTION, HONESTLY
Over 4 years, 2 of 24 designers left. Both were men who relocated internationally for their spouse's opportunity, not because of dissatisfaction. I made a point of celebrating both of them publicly with the full team on the way out, because how you handle a good departure says as much about the culture as how you handle a hire.
That's the distinction I'd want a hiring panel to hear: retention here wasn't the absence of people leaving, it was people staying because they wanted to, and leaving on good terms when life took them somewhere else.
Building the Structure
Once the fundamentals were solid, I made the case to hire 4 managers to own day-to-day leadership, something the team had never had. I hired externally rather than promoting from within, because the senior designers I had were explicit that they didn't want to manage people, or didn't want that responsibility yet. Respecting that was as important as filling the roles. We needed one more so I advocated for a Senior Designer to be promoted.
From there I grew the team by about 9 more designers, and promoted some existing people into roles that fit them better as the team's shape became clearer.
Onboarding That Actually Worked
There was no onboarding process in place when I started. I built one where each existing team member signed up to own a specific onboarding function, things like the design system, and met new hires to teach that piece while getting to know them personally.
New hires consistently said it made them feel safe rather than overwhelmed, no information dump, no feeling helpless in week one, and ramp-up time dropped noticeably as a result.
Outcome
Grew the team from 5 to 24 designers over 4 years while holding roughly 92% retention
Eliminated redundant, duplicated work through a lightweight process change before touching headcount
Built a management layer from scratch, respecting who actually wanted to lead people versus stay in craft
Created an onboarding system from nothing that new hires actively praised, with measurably faster ramp time
Listened to problems in a safe environment and implemented numerous additional ceremonies, meetings, showcases, and team-building activities (only 1 was lame) that benefitted the team and increased their satisfaction AND achievements to the whole bank.