Mentorships

While on Citi Partnerships Experience Design (PXD), I've had the pleasure of mentoring six talented analysts during their year-long placement on our team. I work with them on a weekly basis to help them build their foundational design skills and advance their design thinking capabilities. This involves activities such as whiteboarding challenges, presentations, assignments, and one-on-one meetings. My ultimate goal is to inspire them and provide them with the tools to create successful designs and user experiences of their own. In doing so, I have also sharpened my own skills! I have found mentoring our analysts to be immensely fulfilling and look forward to more mentorship opportunities in the future.

Learn.

On Thursdays, our team gathers for our weekly Analyst meeting, which serves as a valuable opportunity for knowledge sharing and collaboration. As the first three members on PXD, myself and two others develop lessons and activities to help our analysts learn different design skills. These range from user journeys and wireframing to UX research, illustrating in Figma, and design principles. To make the experience engaging and interactive, I conclude my presentations with a fun and relevant activity that allows the analysts to practice the skills they just learned and present their work to the team. These sessions have not only helped the analysts in sharpening their design thinking, but have enabled us to refine our own skills as well. 

Grow.

Every Wednesday, I hold a one-on-one meeting with my assigned analyst, Maggie, and spend some time hearing about how she is feeling in her rotation with our team. I ask her about her workloads with her projects, any pain points she may be having with the team, and generally just do a pulse check on her time at Citi. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity in getting to connect with her one-on-one and help provide a guiding hand for her during her time with our team.

Practice.

At Citi PXD, we prioritize learning and practical application. Our analyst meetings are engaging and interactive, with activities such as whiteboard design challenges, timed exercises, illustration prompts, FigJam boards, group projects, and Socratic seminars. Recently, we developed a 7-week lesson plan that allowed analysts to put their new skills into practice by working on a group project. Through this process, they successfully created a financial application called "Nudge" that helps young adults learn to budget effectively.

  • “Amanda is a talented UX/UI designer, a natural leader, and a reliable team player. I had the opportunity to work with Amanda for a year during my team on the Citi Partnerships Design team, and it was an absolute pleasure. Amanda is the first person to bring forth new ideas, always expanding the boundaries of what can be done in Citi design. She has an eye for making things beautiful, functional, and inclusive, keeping the user in mind in everything she creates. During my time on the team, she immediately served as a mentor to me, teaching me everything I needed to know and more when it came to working in design. She is always the first to volunteer when someone needs help, and she is always willing to tackle a challenge that is unfamiliar to her. Overall, Amanda has the ability to quickly deliver high-quality work while exhibiting great communication skills and a team-first mindset.”

    Neha Sharma, Analyst @ Citi

  • “I had the chance to learn and work alongside Amanda in designing each product across different Partnerships initiatives. It goes without saying that her designs are intuitive, but the precision and dedication that goes into everything she touches is unmatched. I have stared in awe multiple times at the way she can make an idea come alive on the screen. She is also valued on the team for her spirit, from always being up for a challenge, to taking initiative to mentor younger analysts. You’ll be so lucky to have Amanda on the team as a designer and friend!”

    Mandy Tan, Analyst @ Citi