Over the years, Ardian’s expansion across multiple continents led to fragmented workflows, inconsistent onboarding and training, and siloed knowledge within departments. Shadow IT was spreading, and internal communication lacked coherence at group scale. The challenge was to design a holistic, scalable workplace strategy that could centralize tools, align employees with the Ardian brand, and foster collaboration across borders.

I conducted research with 3 C-level executives and 14 employees across HR, IT, Finance, and Communication teams in 4 countries (UK, Korea, USA, France). I defined the digital transformation strategy, identified the functional perimeter, and led the UX design of the workplace. I facilitated workshops, participated in the tech partner selection process, aligned feasibility with development teams, and ran user tests to refine the solution.

The digital workplace strategy brought together communication, training, and knowledge management into a single platform designed to scale with the organization. Beyond streamlining daily workflows, the platform aimed to strengthen Ardian’s culture by uniting employees around the brand identity. It enabled clear and scalable internal communication by formalizing best practices across departments (Analyst, HR, Communication, Finance, etc.), identifying the most effective channels and content formats per use case, and supporting professional development with structured training and reference resources.

I started with in-depth interviews and research to capture the perspectives of executives and employees across 4 countries. I then ran collaborative workshops to align stakeholders and co-design functionalities. Using wireframes and early prototypes, I validated usability through user testing and iterated quickly. Throughout, I balanced feasibility with long-term scalability, ensuring technical alignment while designing a workplace that could evolve with Ardian’s global growth.

The workplace became the flagship tool of Ardian’s internal transformation, centralizing communication, training, and knowledge sharing. It laid the foundation to: Unite employees around Ardian’s brand and culture Scale communication and collaboration across 19 international offices Formalize and distribute best practices tailored to each department Reduce onboarding time by an estimated 30–40% Replace 10+ unofficial shadow IT tools with a unified platform Improve access to knowledge for 1,000+ employees Increase adoption readiness, validated by 6 user testing sessions with highly positive feedback

Sustained international growth requires as much cultural and organizational alignment as technical solutions. Building with a “strategy + UX” approach bridged C-level ambitions with employee needs, ensuring adoption readiness from the start. Collaborative workshops and user testing proved essential to secure buy-in and reduce resistance to change.