Dan Whelan🇦🇺
Product Design Lead at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)
About Dan Whelan
Product Design Lead at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)
Hello, I’m Dan. I’m a senior design leader with 20 years’ experience across product design, UX, customer experience, and AI-enabled design, working in global SaaS, tech, and banking environments.
I specialise in helping designers move from strong craft to strategic influence. That shift usually isn’t about better pixels or more artefacts. It’s about clearer problem framing, stronger decision-making, and learning how to influence direction in complex product teams.
As a mentor, I work most with mid to senior designers and first-time design leaders who want to be trusted partners to product, engineering, and business stakeholders. Together we focus on navigating ambiguity, shaping discovery, making trade-offs explicit, and building the leadership habits that scale impact beyond individual execution.
Sessions are practical and grounded in real work. We’ll unpack one live challenge you’re facing and translate it into a clear path forward, using simple frameworks you can apply immediately.
If you’re looking to strengthen your strategic thinking, increase your influence without relying on authority, or step confidently into design leadership, I’d love to work with you.
Expertise
Sessions with Dan Whelan
- Mentorship Session (30 min): Mentorship session
What mentees say
“I had a great session with Dan! She shared deep subject knowledge/experience and practical advice that gave me many useful takeaways. Her guidance was motivating and effective, and I felt supported and inspired the whole time.”
“Dan is great! She let me rethink about how to present my work, and how to articulate the reasoning and principles behind my design decisions clearly and compellingly.”
“Dan has given me really helpful and insightful feedback on my resume, informed by her expertise and knowledge of the market”