Creative Talk with Anthony Brosnan

Anthony Brosnan is the User Experience and Product Design Lead at Emerge. He last spoke with The Creative Store back in 2015, so he shares what has happened in his journey since then, including moving from the world of agencies to the world of fintech and startups.

Welcome back Anthony. We did a Creative Talk with you back in 2015, we would love to hear how your career has progressed.

Last time I did a creative talk, I had just moved from Y&R to JWT. Interestingly, neither of those agencies exists today in that form or name, a testament to how rapidly our industry changes. Back then, I had just shifted from a digital designer to a digital producer, a position that I found incredibly fulfilling and really opened up the scope of projects I was involved in.

Being a project manager allowed me to gain a wealth of knowledge that has significantly enhanced my capabilities as an Experience Specialist. Managing people and projects gave me deep insights into the overall strategic approach of a project, including the consequences of decision-making and working in partnership with clients to decipher the true scope of the problems they face. This taught me to appreciate the various disciplines involved in a project and to understand their unique contributions.

I remained within the WPP family, navigating several changes, and spent my last three years at Ogilvy New Zealand. The landscape of JWT transformed significantly when it merged with Wunderman to form Wunderman Thompson. This shift brought a renewed focus on strategic work for me, which I found particularly exciting. Under the guidance of my boss, Luke Pearson, I returned to experience design, which had become an even more integral part of our offerings. This transition proved to be a perfect fit.

My time at Ogilvy was marked by special projects, especially those that resonated deeply with me, such as Tiaki and the work with The Human Rights Commission. These projects really stood out for their meaningful impact.

Your recent career move to Emerge / SquareOne, a fintech startup taking on the big banks, is a fantastic step forward for you. How did you decide to make the change?

It was a monumental shift for me going from somewhere I had spent 10+ years. I was deeply entrenched in the agency world, thriving in its dynamic environment, rapid pace, and the thrill of solving diverse problems for a wide range of clients. The variety and scale of work perfectly suited me, and I had no inkling of what my next move would be.

Then came the opportunity with SquareOne and Emerge to lead the experience and product design. Intrigued, I did some research and thought it might be an interesting venture. I jumped on a call with Jovan Pavlicevic and Jamie Jermain, the founders, who shared their long-term vision and the origins of SquareOne. Their mission was to help parents educate their children in financial literacy in a digital age where physical money is becoming increasingly obsolete. This mission resonated deeply with me, as my father had instilled the importance of saving and spending wisely, focusing on things that truly bring joy.

I understood the problem they aimed to solve, both for the present and the future, and found their culture and values to be in perfect alignment with my own. This made the decision to join them quite easy.

The most enticing part of the offer was the chance to help create a banking platform and ecosystem from scratch in just nine months with a small team of nine people. This endeavour has now evolved into Emerge, a truly unique and revolutionary business banking platform – and recently featured on Forbes Asia 100 to watch.

What does a typical week look like?

Every week is part of a two week sprint process in which there are major and minor features worked on, so no week really looks the same and being a small team, we all carry a significant amount of responsibility, which fosters a high level of trust and allows for a broad scope in our roles.

Each day kicks off the same way, with a team stand-up meeting. This ritual not only fosters visibility across the team but also provides valuable insights into our progress and the successes and challenges individuals and teams are facing.

About 40% of my time is spent on research and talking to our customers – this is a very important part of how we operate and we are very lucky to have customers willing to share their insights, opinions and use cases for us to workshop and build upon.

Then usually the other 40% is going through the process of refining requirements, concepting to developing high-fidelity prototypes where I gather extensive feedback from the team and customers to ensure that my proposed solutions align with both product and development goals. This collaborative approach ensures we stay on track and deliver the best possible outcomes.
The remaining 20% involves reviewing, analysing and refining live features for improvement or expansion.

At the end of each week, we hold a showcase on Friday to highlight the great work that’s been accomplished!

Why the fintech and banking sector?

There is quite a bit of hype around joining a fintech in the typical roles needed, but for me it really wasn’t about the sector but about the opportunity and quite evident gaps to do something special. In New Zealand it’s fair to say that the banking options available are all much the same in terms of offering and experience and because of that our expectations on banking are fairly low. For example, most companies have a single company credit card that everyone shares, making it difficult to track who spent what, why and where’s the receipt for this and that. However, with Emerge, you can add your employees to your account and issue them individual cards with specific spend limits and permissions. This allows employees to make purchases and attach receipts directly to transactions, which are then seamlessly integrated with Xero. This creates an efficient and effective expense management system which can save a huge amount of time.

Another huge driver was the amount of ownership, it’s different to belonging to other businesses simply because you can have a bit more weight in the decision-making process. It’s been a rewarding and refreshing change, especially as the speed, innovation and the talent within the team is exceptional.

Digital banking and finance tech – tell us the scoop – where’s it heading?

For me, the major focus which is becoming even more evident is customer safety and security, particularly around fraud detection and anti-theft measures. We’ve all seen the significant rise in headlines that involve scams and unauthorised use of card details, which underscores the importance of strengthening these protective measures to safeguard users’ financial information. There are many clever ways in which this is being tackled, from leveraging machine learning to analysing behaviour patterns, to implementing advanced encryption and authentication methods.

From both personal and agency perspectives, it’s clear that spending money without effective tracking can lead to financial inefficiencies. Leveraging intelligent tools that bring spending habits to the forefront, visually break down expenditures, and provide actionable insights is crucial. These tools can highlight when weekly or monthly spending and income deviate from expectations, allowing for timely adjustments and more effective financial management.

As a User Experience specialist – break down what this actually means.

Most people call it a User Experience Designer, but there is a misconception that design is the main output or thing I do – and that interface design and experience design are the same thing. People may roll their eyes at that statement, but when it comes to ensuring you have the right person for a job it can make a huge difference to the outcome or insights in the problem or problems being solved. There is an overlap in some of the core principals but the depth in skills attributed to someone who is experience-driven vs design might be fundamentally different.

With the approach I take, my ultimate goal is ensuring that I provide a product, platform, service or whatever it might be in a way that is intuitive to the user to achieve their goals and also performs from a business point of view with measurable attributes to gauge performance and success.

So, in short, my goal is not just to make something only look good, my goal is to understand what will work, why it will work, how it will work, when it’s not working and what can change to improve it’s likeliness of working.

How do you manage the day to day complications that arise with large scale projects?

Complications are bound to come up and cause disruption, as a business we are still fairly small so in a way we are lucky with how things are communicated. The key lies in slowing down to speed up, meaning resisting the urge to make hasty decisions which cause long term damage or bad practices. It’s about taking a moment to pause, gather the right people, and approach the situation with transparency. By informing everyone who needs to be in the loop and ensuring that the right minds are in the room, you create an environment where every possible question is asked and explored.

This collaborative approach allows us to formulate solutions that not only address the immediate challenge but also builds a foundation for long-term success, while staying aligned with the core principles and goals of Emerge and SquareOne.

Do you have a current mentor? Do you see mentorship as valuable for your career?

Not currently, but I have had many great mentors at crucial points in my career. Reflecting back, they were the ones who recognised certain skills or attributes in me before I did, guiding me in the right direction and helping me hone my abilities to get to where I am today.

I still keep in touch with many of them, seeking their advice and listening to their insights.

Any inspiration you can share with us?

I would say locally, Almond Studio is producing some beautifully crafted work which is world-class in the e-commerce space. Their work on the Blunt Umbrella website is particularly impressive and satisfying on many levels. So shout out to Alex, Monica, and their team.

Secondly, Jovan recently did an interesting podcast which dives more into the challenges many parents face when it comes to teaching their kids how to understand and navigate their own finances – a great listen for any parent. Listen here

Last words?

I encourage any agencies or businesses interested in trying Emerge to sign up and explore its features—it’s free to use, and integrates directly with Xero. Give it a go, and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or financial challenges you might have. We are always looking to help and evolve.

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