ENBD Grow Infinity
ENBD Grow Infinity
ENBD Grow Infinity
AI-First Coach for Emiratis by Emiratis
AI-First Coach for Emiratis by Emiratis
AI-First Coach for Emiratis by Emiratis
An AI-first coaching platform
built by Emiratis for Emiratis, to help them grow within one of the region's largest banks - designed, end to end, by some of our newest Emirati talent.
An AI-first coaching platform
built by Emiratis for Emiratis, to help them grow within one of the region’s largest banks - designed, end to end, by some of our newest Emirati talent.
An AI-first coaching platform
built by Emiratis for Emiratis, to help them grow within one of the region’s largest banks - designed, end to end, by some of our newest Emirati talent.
Details
Details
Company: Emirates NBD
Programme: Bedaya Programme
Period: 2023 - 2026
Role: Head of Visual Design and Interaction Design (Product Design)
Company: Emirates NBD
Programme: Bedaya Programme
Period: 2023 - 2026
Role: Head of Visual Design and Interaction Design (Product Design)
Company: Emirates NBD
Programme: Bedaya Programme
Period: 2023 - 2026
Role: Head of Visual Design and Interaction Design (Product Design)
BEGINNING
BEGINNING
It started in a day
In November 2025, the Emiratisation team and the Agile Chapter brought people together for a UAE Codes Day at the Emirates Institute of Finance. The brief was a clear one: to vibe-code an AI-first coaching platform for the Emirati employees of Emirates NBD. Three ideas came out on top, and rather than choosing between them, we folded the best of each into a single concept - and a jury of mentors and select senior leadership chose to take that forward and build it.
Because the brief was AI-first from the very beginning, the AI never sat on top of a conventional platform - it became the platform. Grow Infinity was built to coach people every day, with most of the experience taking place in conversation rather than in screens and menus.
It started in a day
In November 2025, the Emiratisation team and the Agile Chapter brought people together for a UAE Codes Day at the Emirates Institute of Finance. The brief was a clear one: to vibe-code an AI-first coaching platform for the Emirati employees of Emirates NBD. Three ideas came out on top, and rather than choosing between them, we folded the best of each into a single concept - and a jury of mentors and select senior leadership chose to take that forward and build it.
Because the brief was AI-first from the very beginning, the AI never sat on top of a conventional platform - it became the platform. Grow Infinity was built to coach people every day, with most of the experience taking place in conversation rather than in screens and menus.
It started in a day
In November 2025, the Emiratisation team and the Agile Chapter brought people together for a UAE Codes Day at the Emirates Institute of Finance. The brief was a clear one: to vibe-code an AI-first coaching platform for the Emirati employees of Emirates NBD. Three ideas came out on top, and rather than choosing between them, we folded the best of each into a single concept - and a jury of mentors and select senior leadership chose to take that forward and build it.
Because the brief was AI-first from the very beginning, the AI never sat on top of a conventional platform - it became the platform. Grow Infinity was built to coach people every day, with most of the experience taking place in conversation rather than in screens and menus.
TEAM
TEAM
The bet
When the platform moved from a winning idea to something we were committed to building, I saw an opportunity that went beyond the product itself. The design could have sat with any number of teams, but I felt it belonged with some of our newest Bedaya graduates - young Emiratis just deployed into full-time roles after the bank's year-long Emiratisation programme, part of a wider group of remarkable talent on our team, and capable of far more than their titles suggested. I took the idea to May Mansoori, our Head of Emiratisation, who embraced it immediately.
Two of them, Azza and Maitha, led the design and carried it further than I had dared hope. For both, Grow Infinity was their first project owned end to end, and watching them grow into that responsibility - supported by the talent around them - was, for me, the most rewarding part of the whole engagement.
The bet
When the platform moved from a winning idea to something we were committed to building, I saw an opportunity that went beyond the product itself. The design could have sat with any number of teams, but I felt it belonged with some of our newest Bedaya graduates - young Emiratis just deployed into full-time roles after the bank’s year-long Emiratisation programme, part of a wider group of remarkable talent on our team, and capable of far more than their titles suggested. I took the idea to May Mansoori, our Head of Emiratisation, who embraced it immediately.
Two of them, Azza and Maitha, led the design and carried it further than I had dared hope. For both, Grow Infinity was their first project owned end to end, and watching them grow into that responsibility - supported by the talent around them - was, for me, the most rewarding part of the whole engagement.
The bet
When the platform moved from a winning idea to something we were committed to building, I saw an opportunity that went beyond the product itself. The design could have sat with any number of teams, but I felt it belonged with some of our newest Bedaya graduates - young Emiratis just deployed into full-time roles after the bank’s year-long Emiratisation programme, part of a wider group of remarkable talent on our team, and capable of far more than their titles suggested. I took the idea to May Mansoori, our Head of Emiratisation, who embraced it immediately.
Two of them, Azza and Maitha, led the design and carried it further than I had dared hope. For both, Grow Infinity was their first project owned end to end, and watching them grow into that responsibility - supported by the talent around them - was, for me, the most rewarding part of the whole engagement.
AI-FIRST
AI-FIRST
An AI-first product, built with judgment
At the heart of the platform is the AI Coach. Once a person has set up a short profile, it builds them a personalised twelve-month learning plan, coaches them through it day by day, and, when they reach the end of it, brings real internal opportunities and mock interviews to them - all in service of making sure they truly have the skills their next move will ask for.
The more interesting design question for us was never how to make the experience feel like AI, but where AI should lead and where it should quietly step back. We were happy to let it lead on the things it does well - shaping each person's learning plan, coaching them through it day to day, and matching skills, job titles and job families across HRConnect and Qiyadat, the government's leadership-assessment platform for Emiratis. But there was one place we chose to hold it back, and that was the profile itself.
We found early on that keeping someone's experience and certifications inside a chat looked clever but served people poorly. To change a single detail, they would have had to recall that the conversation ever happened, find it again in their history, and explain themselves to a bot all over again. So we kept that baseline information in clean, editable AI-assisted forms instead - consistent for everyone, easy to find, and easy to update. It was a small decision that said a great deal about how we wanted the whole experience to feel: intelligent where intelligence helped, and gentle everywhere else.
An AI-first product, built with judgment
At the heart of the platform is the AI Coach. Once a person has set up a short profile, it builds them a personalised twelve-month learning plan, coaches them through it day by day, and, when they reach the end of it, brings real internal opportunities and mock interviews to them - all in service of making sure they truly have the skills their next move will ask for.
The more interesting design question for us was never how to make the experience feel like AI, but where AI should lead and where it should quietly step back. We were happy to let it lead on the things it does well - shaping each person’s learning plan, coaching them through it day to day, and matching skills, job titles and job families across HRConnect and Qiyadat, the government’s leadership-assessment platform for Emiratis. But there was one place we chose to hold it back, and that was the profile itself.
We found early on that keeping someone’s experience and certifications inside a chat looked clever but served people poorly. To change a single detail, they would have had to recall that the conversation ever happened, find it again in their history, and explain themselves to a bot all over again. So we kept that baseline information in clean, editable AI-assisted forms instead - consistent for everyone, easy to find, and easy to update. It was a small decision that said a great deal about how we wanted the whole experience to feel: intelligent where intelligence helped, and gentle everywhere else.
An AI-first product, built with judgment
At the heart of the platform is the AI Coach. Once a person has set up a short profile, it builds them a personalised twelve-month learning plan, coaches them through it day by day, and, when they reach the end of it, brings real internal opportunities and mock interviews to them - all in service of making sure they truly have the skills their next move will ask for.
The more interesting design question for us was never how to make the experience feel like AI, but where AI should lead and where it should quietly step back. We were happy to let it lead on the things it does well - shaping each person’s learning plan, coaching them through it day to day, and matching skills, job titles and job families across HRConnect and Qiyadat, the government’s leadership-assessment platform for Emiratis. But there was one place we chose to hold it back, and that was the profile itself.
We found early on that keeping someone’s experience and certifications inside a chat looked clever but served people poorly. To change a single detail, they would have had to recall that the conversation ever happened, find it again in their history, and explain themselves to a bot all over again. So we kept that baseline information in clean, editable AI-assisted forms instead - consistent for everyone, easy to find, and easy to update. It was a small decision that said a great deal about how we wanted the whole experience to feel: intelligent where intelligence helped, and gentle everywhere else.
design system
design system
A system of their own
May was clear that the product needed to feel inspirational and to be easy to navigate, because that, more than anything, is what adoption rests on. To get there, we were given a rare exception: rather than inheriting our global LEAP design system, Azza was able to build a local one from the ground up, shaped around exactly the experience we wanted people to have.
There is something I find quietly remarkable about a designer building the design language itself on her very first project, and it remains one of the things I am most proud of in all of this.
A system of their own
May was clear that the product needed to feel inspirational and to be easy to navigate, because that, more than anything, is what adoption rests on. To get there, we were given a rare exception: rather than inheriting our global LEAP design system, Azza was able to build a local one from the ground up, shaped around exactly the experience we wanted people to have.
There is something I find quietly remarkable about a designer building the design language itself on her very first project, and it remains one of the things I am most proud of in all of this.
A system of their own
May was clear that the product needed to feel inspirational and to be easy to navigate, because that, more than anything, is what adoption rests on. To get there, we were given a rare exception: rather than inheriting our global LEAP design system, Azza was able to build a local one from the ground up, shaped around exactly the experience we wanted people to have.
There is something I find quietly remarkable about a designer building the design language itself on her very first project, and it remains one of the things I am most proud of in all of this.
what’s next
what’s next
And now... what's next?
As I write this, Grow Infinity is about to launch, so the numbers that will matter most - promotions, lateral moves, trainings completed, and ultimately more Emiratis growing further within the Bank - are still ahead of us. We know what we will be looking for, and we will share it as it comes.
There is one outcome, though, that is already certain, even before launch. Two young Emiratis who arrived at the very start of their careers will leave this project having owned, designed and delivered a platform that shipped - and they did it alongside a team I could not be prouder of.
For a product built to help Emiratis grow, there is something fitting in the fact that it helped its own makers grow first.
And now… what’s next?
As I write this, Grow Infinity is about to launch, so the numbers that will matter most - promotions, lateral moves, trainings completed, and ultimately more Emiratis growing further within the Bank - are still ahead of us. We know what we will be looking for, and we will share it as it comes.
There is one outcome, though, that is already certain, even before launch. Two young Emiratis who arrived at the very start of their careers will leave this project having owned, designed and delivered a platform that shipped - and they did it alongside a team I could not be prouder of.
For a product built to help Emiratis grow, there is something fitting in the fact that it helped its own makers grow first.
And now… what’s next?
As I write this, Grow Infinity is about to launch, so the numbers that will matter most - promotions, lateral moves, trainings completed, and ultimately more Emiratis growing further within the Bank - are still ahead of us. We know what we will be looking for, and we will share it as it comes.
There is one outcome, though, that is already certain, even before launch. Two young Emiratis who arrived at the very start of their careers will leave this project having owned, designed and delivered a platform that shipped - and they did it alongside a team I could not be prouder of.
For a product built to help Emiratis grow, there is something fitting in the fact that it helped its own makers grow first.
Any comments or questions?
I’d love to hear from you.
Any comments or questions?
I’d love to hear from you.
Any comments or questions?
I’d love to hear from you.
Contact
Contact