Merger managed.
After the Just Eat × Takeaway.com merger, two design cultures had to work as one. As interim Head of Product Design, I gave the consumer design org a structure, a shared cadence and one way of working.
- Role
- Interim Head of Product Design (formal)
- Reported to
- Product Director
- Led directly
- Consumer design: 28 designers
- Wider scope
- Direction across the verticals of a ~93-person combined design department
- Context
- Merger integration, during COVID
- Duration
- 6 months
- 28Consumer designers from both companies, in mixed teams
- 1–2Leavers out of 28 during the integration, despite budget being pulled
- 1Shared cadence, built from what both teams said actually helped
Two design cultures, no one steering.
The merger put two design orgs together: roughly 50 designers from Just Eat and 40 from Takeaway.com. Both were hierarchical. On the Just Eat side decisions escalated up, with indirect lines of communication and little ownership of accountability. On the Takeaway.com side designers had more autonomy, were involved in more and escalated less.
After the merger there was a leadership vacuum: no structure, no stakeholder management, no communication up or down. I took on the formal interim Head of Product Design role to give it shape.
One app, one way of working.
The company had already decided on one standard app instead of separate country apps. Every acquired app went through the same standardisation: the best features scaled to every market, like the food tracker and tipping, and the rest were retired in the migrations.
My job was to make the design org match that decision: one structure, one cadence, one set of standards, instead of two organisations sharing a logo.
What I chose, over what.
| I chose | Over | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Mixing Just Eat and Takeaway designers in every team | Keeping the two orgs side by side | Separate teams would have kept two cultures alive |
| Three areas with one manager each | Four managers doubled up per side | Clear ownership per journey area instead of two parallel hierarchies |
| A cadence built from team feedback | Imposing one side's rituals | People trust a process they helped shape |
Four changes in six months.
- Structure
We started with four design managers, two from each side, doubled up instead of covering every area. The new model had three areas, each with one design manager: discovery; menu and checkout; and after order together with the design system. Each team had a lead with two or three designers, mixed from both sides.
- Cadence
We mapped every ritual both sides had, asked the team which ones actually helped, and built one cadence from that: shared reviews and critiques, syncs, bi-weeklies, all-hands, team updates, a monthly social and offsites.
- Communication
Regular lines up to product leadership and down to the teams, so decisions and their reasons reached everyone. That was missing entirely before.
- Standards
One shared way of working across both sides: the same reviews, the same quality bar and the same handover.
One or two leavers out of 28.
The risk was people distrusting the process and leaving while budget was being pulled from the organisation. In the end only one or two of 28 consumer designers left during the integration.
Team sentiment improved in the half-yearly engagement survey, and both sides were working the same way by the end of my six months.
The offsite mattered most. In the middle of COVID, both teams were in one room.
What I'd do differently.
I'd put a number on sentiment and retention from day one. I knew it was working, but I couldn't show it as hard data when it mattered.