Dharani Perera

Principal Design Strategist (Contract) GIC Singapore | Jan 2025 – Apr 2025​

• Standardized the Discovery phase as a service design entry point across Public and Private Market teams.

• Created a discovery research toolkit with templates and journey mapping guides now used organisation wide.

• Upskilled 20+ designers and PMs, embedding service-oriented thinking into research and planning.​

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Design Strategist (Contract) Aquent USA | May 2024 – Jul 2024

• Trained enterprise teams in design and change management strategy, contributing to a long-term contract renewal with ExxonMobil.

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Principal Design Strategist (Contract) Grab Holdings | Jan 2021 – Mar 2023

• Led service and product design strategy for GrabFin, Maps, Loyalty, POS, and Safety—driving EBITA growth and operational cost savings.

• Embedded service design in product development; authored the Finance Design Playbook's service design section. Embedding consistent language and frameworks for service design across teams.

• Trained 100+ team members in journey mapping, blueprinting, and ecosystem mapping.

• Founded the Grab Merchant Research Panel: cut recruitment costs by 65% and time by 45%.

• Streamlined research intake process: reduced evaluation time by 60%, cut stakeholder load by 80%.

• Enabled design teams to run 70% of usability tests, freeing researchers to focus on strategic studies.

 

Senior Manager, Design Strategy & Research Grab Holdings | Sep 2017 – Feb 2020

• Created the Product Prioritization Framework (Open Spaces), linking top 10 insights to core OKRs; credited by leadership for major EBITA gains.

• Secured representation in leadership forums; elevated design and customer insight into C-level reviews.

• Institutionalized HCD phases into product lifecycle. Led visioning, strategy, stakeholder alignment, ideation, and validation workshops across disciplines—with a strong emphasis on mapping service journeys and aligning tech and operations with product objectives.

• Developed and conducted organization-wide training in service design tools including journey mapping, blueprinting, and ecosystem mapping—enabling early engagement of design in GrabFood, GrabMart, Grab Maps, and Safety.

• Managed cross-regional design teams supporting eight SEA markets; aligned tech, ops, and product through co-creation workshops.

• Launched design thinking curriculum; created customer immersion program that spurred engineering-led innovations. Over 200+ Engineers across all regions were upskilled. 

• Scaled Design strategy and Research function cross all Grab product lines. Growing and managing a team of 45 Design strategists and researchers. 

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Senior Customer Experience Designer nbn™ Australia | Jun 2013 – Jun 2016

• Pioneered "Experience Jams" (service blueprinting) for GTM readiness; adopted company-wide.

• Co-founded nbn Innovations Lab; delivered a profitable service line within one year.

• Led CX for Satellite product launch, which achieved highest customer satisfaction (8/10) in company history.​​

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