15 to 250 Members: Scaling a Design Community & Studio Inside a Global Organization
Leading the BA Design Community and co-founding the Design Studio at ExxonMobil Buenos Aires, growing an informal group into a structured design capability that delivered real projects, mentored non-designers, and became part of the organization's corporate strategy.
Design was present but invisible and unstructured
The Buenos Aires Business Support Center (BA GBC) at ExxonMobil had a small group of roughly 14 designers and design enthusiasts informally supporting design needs as a "step-out" activity, meaning it sat outside their official roles, with no dedicated structure, career paths, or way to scale impact.
At the same time, teams across the organization needed design support but had no structured way to access it. There was clear appetite for design, it just had no infrastructure to grow from.
I took on the challenge of leading the community in 2022. In March 2023, we officially relaunched it, opening participation to anyone interested in learning design, establishing the BA Design Studio as its delivery arm, and building the operational model from scratch.
Presenting the community's first-year results to the organization, and the studio team that made it happen.
Design Community Lead and Co-Founder of the BA Design Studio. Together with my co-lead, I was responsible for the strategy, structure, and day-to-day leadership of both the community and the studio, from defining how we worked to what we delivered and how we grew.
- Defining the community's mission, vision, values, and strategic direction
- Structuring the BA Design Studio as a collaborative model for delivering real internal projects
- Creating four internal career path groups for members to grow according to their interests
- Launching the Creative Engine, a mentoring program for non-designers to develop design skills
- Organizing training and workshops, including two multi-day sessions led by industry expert Kim Goodwin
- Implementing Agile methodology with a dedicated Scrum Master and Product Owner
- Managing external vendors and ensuring alignment with corporate branding standards
- Securing the community's inclusion in the BA GBC Corporate Strategy for 2024
Mentoring program designed to develop design skills in non-designers through hands-on, collaborative learning
Four internal tracks enabling all members — designers and enthusiasts — to grow according to their own goals
Introduced workflow boards, a Scrum Master, and a Product Owner role to professionalize project delivery
Studio support extended to projects in other global locations, beyond the Buenos Aires office
Choices that shaped the community
The decision to open the community to any employee interested in design, regardless of their role or background, was the single biggest driver of growth. It reframed the community as a learning space rather than a professional guild, which dramatically lowered the barrier to entry and brought in people who became some of the studio's most committed contributors.
Rather than running the studio as a training program, we structured it around real internal deliverables. Contributors worked on actual projects, branding, campaigns, event production, which created genuine accountability, higher quality output, and a portfolio of work members could point to. The Career Fair execution was the clearest example of this model working at scale.
Organizing two multi-day workshops with Kim Goodwin, one on Interaction Design and one on Stakeholder Management, was a deliberate effort to elevate the community's learning beyond what internal resources could offer. I handled the full organization of both sessions. The workshops drew attendees from multiple business lines and roles, received strong engagement and feedback, and reinforced the community's credibility as a serious design capability.
Defining a mission, vision, values, team agreement, and career paths wasn't bureaucracy, it was the infrastructure that made scaling possible without losing the collaborative culture that made the community work. It also positioned the initiative as credible to senior leadership, which led directly to inclusion in the BA GBC Corporate Strategy for 2024.
Attendees from multiple business lines at the Kim Goodwin workshops on Interaction Design and Stakeholder Management.
Monthly sessions designed to engage, humor was a deliberate tool for building and sustaining a 65% average attendance rate.
ExxonMobil organized an internal Career Fair to help employees discover roles and career opportunities across 7 local business lines. The BA Design Studio was brought in to lead the event's branding and design execution, and eventually took over work originally assigned to an external agency that wasn't meeting the organization's quality standards.
The studio designed and produced the full event experience: banners, stands, merchandising, games, videos, and interactive elements, all coordinated across a team of designers and non-designer contributors. The event ran over three days and was attended by more than 1,500 employees.
From informal group to strategic capability.
Within one year of the March 2023 relaunch, the community grew from 15 to approximately 250 members, a 1,342% increase, with an average attendance of 65% at monthly meetings. The studio reached 30+ active contributors delivering projects across BA and other global locations.
The initiative was recognized as a strategic capability and included in the BA GBC Corporate Strategy for 2024. What started as an informal step-out activity had become a structured, visible, and valued part of the organization's design infrastructure, built from the ground up with no dedicated budget or headcount, supported by a senior sponsor, but driven entirely by the community itself.