Faheed Alli-Balogun

As Head of Product, I orchestrate the strategic vision, product roadmap, and cross-functional execution for Chimoney’s borderless financial infrastructure. Operating at the intersection of product architecture, macroeconomics, and compliance, I coordinate distributed teams across Product Design, Engineering, Mobile, DevOps, and QA to deliver the operating system for global value movement. Architecting Packetized Value Transfer: Following our selection for the Interledger Foundation's Digital Financial Services Grant (July 2024), I oversaw the integration of the Interledger Protocol (ILP) into our wallets and payouts stack. To solve global liquidity fragmentation, I championed the shift from legacy "message-switching" to "packet-switching," enabling high-velocity interoperability across 130+ countries. Regulatory Compliance & Data Architecture: I directed the product and security alignments required to secure Chimoney’s Canadian Payment Service Provider (PSP) license under the RPAA and FINTRAC MSB frameworks. This involved aligning our data payload infrastructure with FATF "Travel Rule" mandates and ISO 20022 schemas, while deploying advanced KYC/KYB video-liveness and real-time AML/CFT monitoring. Commercial Leadership & Go-To-Market: Beyond guiding technical execution, I own the product direction for our B2B APIs, Enterprise Dashboard, and B2C app, optimizing unit economics and routing efficiencies. I manage product communications with key stakeholders (C-Suite, Finance, Enterprise Clients) to ensure feature velocity translates to measurable growth and optimized P&L margins. Ecosystem Growth & Thought Leadership: I represent Chimoney’s product vision globally, delivering a keynote on financial interoperability at the Interledger Summit (Mexico City) and leading the launch of our ILP-enabled App at the Interledger Summit (Cape Town).

Operating as a highly autonomous Senior Individual Contributor (IC), I led the end-to-end UX/UI overhaul of the Chimoney App (formerly Scrim) following its acquisition. My mandate was to architect a frictionless, consumer-facing (B2C) mobile experience powered by our complex B2B enterprise APIs. Fintech UX & Information Architecture (IA): I completely restructured the app's Information Architecture based on deep user pattern analysis. The core UX challenge was designing an intuitive multi-currency wallet system (USD, CAD, NGN) that handled in-app conversions, multi-currency collections, and split payouts without inducing cognitive overload. Conditional UI for Cross-Border Remittance: Scaling transfers to 130+ countries introduced massive edge cases regarding beneficiary data. I designed dynamic, conditional UI forms that adapt in real-time to specific regional banking requirements and transfer methods, drastically reducing user error and drop-off during complex remittance flows. Onboarding & Consumer Brand Identity: I developed a "B2C twin" of the Chimoney corporate brand—maintaining trust while optimizing for a younger, dynamic demographic. I applied progressive disclosure best practices to the onboarding flow, drastically reducing Time-to-Value (TTV). Additionally, I led the UX integration for our global community features, including the ISIC student benefits partnership, and designed the new B2C product website. Impact & Engineering Collaboration: Working directly alongside the engineering team, I ensured high-fidelity design handoffs and rapid iteration. The mobile redesign directly resulted in a significant increase in new account creations, higher cross-border transaction volumes, and a mathematically faster user onboarding cycle.

​I stepped into the Creative Marketing Director role to lead the Go-To-Market (GTM) and public relations strategy during Chimoney’s most aggressive period of hypergrowth. Over a 6-month sprint, I owned the visual narrative, media correspondence, and brand positioning for major institutional milestones, M&A activity, and global partnerships. ​Global PR & Institutional Trust: I directed the media strategy and created the comprehensive media kits for two watershed announcements: our acceptance into the Techstars Toronto accelerator and our global payout partnership with Corpay (connecting 130+ countries). I collaborated directly with top-tier financial and tech media outlets (Fintech Futures, ThePaypers, GlobeNewswire) to ensure our narrative as a scalable, enterprise-grade infrastructure was precisely communicated. ​M&A Brand Integration (Scrim App): Following Chimoney’s acquisition of Scrim, I led the immediate visual and strategic integration of the subsidiary. I managed the transition from "Scrim" to "Scrim by Chimoney," developing the interim brand kits and orchestrating the press release campaigns that were picked up by major African publications (The Guardian, Tekedia). ​Ecosystem & Developer Growth: To drive grassroots API adoption, I led partnership marketing initiatives with major tech communities. This included designing exclusive merchandise and marketing collateral for the Gen-Z Techies collaboration, and managing the public announcements for our integration with the Dreamax developer community, where I continue to serve as a mentor.

I joined Chimoney at a critical inflection point, tasked initially with maintaining the original B2C "Gen-Z" visual identity. However, as the company’s business model pivoted toward B2B payment infrastructure, we identified a strategic misalignment between our playful visual language and our new enterprise goals. Strategic Rebranding & Positioning: I spearheaded the comprehensive market research and competitor analysis (benchmarking against Stripe and Flutterwave) that informed our pivot. I architected the 2023 Brand Guidelines from the ground up, transitioning the brand from a "playful" aesthetic to a trusted "Infrastructure" identity. This included defining the new color psychology, typography, and the "Clean Aesthetic" illustration system that defined our market positioning. Product Design Integration: Midway through my time in this role, I expanded my scope from Brand to Product Design. Following the departure of the Lead Product Designer, I assumed ownership of the core dashboard UX. I optimized user flows for the payout engine and designed new features to support our API-first direction, bridging the gap between marketing promises and product reality. Impact: In July 2023, I executed the total overhaul of the company website and digital footprint to reflect our new "Payment Infrastructure" positioning. This visual maturity was a key factor in establishing the corporate credibility that contributed to Chimoney’s acceptance into Techstars Toronto just one month later (August 2023).

I took ownership of the Unispend brand evolution in late 2022, tasked with upgrading an early MVP (ChiSpend) that was struggling to gain traction. My process began with a deep-dive competitive analysis and user research phase, where I identified that the lack of adoption stemmed from a "trust gap" in the original MVP’s design. I defined the strategic roadmap to transform the product from a basic crypto-tool into a robust, consumer-facing marketplace. Executing on this strategy, I led the end-to-end design of the new Brand Identity. This involved engineering a complete visual system from scratch, including the logo, typography, color palettes, and comprehensive brand guidelines to ensure consistency across all touchpoints. Simultaneously, I designed the low- and high-fidelity prototypes for the new Unispend marketplace and product website. I focused heavily on a mobile-first UX, ensuring the marketplace could be seamlessly embedded within third-party crypto wallets like Xaman and Valora, which was critical for our distribution strategy. The culmination of this work was the official go-to-market launch in July 2023. I served as the creative strategist for the global virtual launch party, orchestrating the entire run-of-show, designing all broadcast assets, and managing the multi-platform livestream which drew over 600 live viewers. The success of this rebrand and launch was validated immediately: shortly after going live, Unispend secured a $50,000 grant from the XRPL Accelerator, cementing its place as a viable, scalable product in the crypto-commerce ecosystem.

Promoted to lead the creative department, managing a team of designers and overseeing the end-to-end visual strategy for software products and digital campaigns. In this role, I began bridging the gap between traditional graphic design and user-centric digital interfaces, setting the foundation for my transition into Product Design.

Transitioned into a full-time Graphic Designer, taking ownership of digital and print campaigns. I worked closely with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into compelling visual narratives, optimizing brand consistency across various client projects and software interfaces.

Started my design career by assisting the core creative team with brand assets, marketing collateral, and foundational visual design. This period was dedicated to mastering industry-standard design tools and understanding the fundamental principles of visual communication