Alfredo Vásquez | Strategic Design Lead

The full picture

Every hat I've worn taught me something the next one needed

Alfredo Vásquez — Strategic Design Lead

Alfredo Vásquez

I'm a

I've worn many hats.
Each one taught me something the next one needed.

Strategic Design Lead · Lima, Peru

I've worn many hats throughout my life. Every stage, every adventure, every venture, every culture I encountered left me lessons that, in hindsight, shaped a flexible and adaptable mindset. I chose to study computer engineering for the range of possibilities it offered — though I never imagined "designer" would be one of them. Throughout my career I always kept a close relationship with technology, using data analytics applied to product and service management, regardless of the role I was in.

I got into a bank before I got into design. My first job was an internship at BCP in 2009, and by 2011 I was on the founding team of its mobile banking — when checking a balance on a phone was still an unusual thing to do. I've kept coming back to banking ever since. That's why the internal half of a product is never abstract to me: for years I was the internal user.

My path to design wasn't a decision — it was a consequence. And it started in a card shop. During a stint as a freelance front-end developer, my love for Magic: The Gathering led me to start a business: that's how El Tablero de Otto was born. It was while building that hobby store that I started designing without knowing it — finding pain points in other businesses, understanding what different types of users valued, creating experiences that made people want to stay. By the time I realized what I was doing, I was already a designer.

Most of my career has run on project time — secondments, consultancy, squads that assemble for a launch and dissolve after it. Three of those years I spent leading a design team at BBVA Perú; today I'm at BCP as a direct hire, designing internal Salesforce tools. I left almost every project before the business numbers came in. What each one left me was the judgment I took into the next.

Outside the screens, I keep learning in other ways. I'm a cyclist who has pedaled all the way to Urubamba, a trekker who knows the Pampa de la Quinua, a traveler who takes advantage of every friend's wedding to explore a new region. I'm a Scout by training — and that explains a lot about how I approach problems. Family guides my decisions. Games, music and film are how I process the world when I'm not in designer mode. I think all of that shows up in the work.

Some quotes I use as mantras:

“If you want different results, don't always do the same thing.”
— Albert Einstein

The principle behind every well-made project: question the process before you execute it.

“If you focus on your competitors, you will have to wait until they do something. If you focus on your customer, you can be a pioneer.”
— Jeff Bezos

I apply this every time someone in a brief asks what the competition is doing before talking about the user.

“Take care of your employees, and they will take care of your customers.”
— Richard Branson

Organizational design matters just as much as product design — a well cared-for team designs better.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change.”
— Charles Darwin

My entire career is an argument for this idea — every turn was an adaptation, not an improvisation.

“If you walk alone you'll get there faster; if you walk accompanied, you'll get further.”
— Chinese proverb

That's why I prefer small, autonomous teams with a clear purpose over hierarchies that slow things down.

“If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.”
— Geena Davis

Starting El Tablero de Otto while I had a stable job was the risk that gave me the career I have today.

Life Milestones

2026

Ayacucho Road Trip — Holy Week

Group trip for Velatoro and Jalatoro.

2025

Product Designer, direct hire at BCP

From consulting to a direct relationship — the natural next step.

2025

New Year in Cusco

Visiting Fer and ringing in the new year with friends from Cusco.

2024

Strategic Design CoE at BCP

UX Designer for Salesforce via Multiplica Talent, within the bank's Design Center of Excellence.

2023

Certified Scrum Product Owner®

CSPO® certification earned in October — one more piece of the product leadership puzzle.

2022

Cebiche Design Team — BBVA Peru

UX Designer and Design Lead via Multiplica Talent, leading design projects for Peruvian banking.

2022

Ayacucho — Holy Week

Group trip for Jack's open house.

2021

Janus — Interbank via LIQUID

End-to-end design of Peru's first 100% digital mortgage.

2020

Advanced UX and Service Design

El Muro program — deepening service design and advanced methodologies.

2020

UX Designer seconded to Interbank

First experience at LIQUID — the start of the Janus project.

2019

Cajamarca — Porcón Farm

Family trip with an obligatory stop at Peru's most photogenic farm.

2019

Cusco — Andean baroque circuit

Fernando's wedding as the perfect excuse to explore the baroque circuit solo.

2019

Digital Culture Bootcamp

Intensive training at En Estado Beta — digital culture and an experimentation mindset.

2018

Ayacucho — Pampa de la Quinua

Eder's wedding and an improvised trip to Peru's most significant battlefield.

2018

Service Design and Lean UX

Specialization program completed — the tools that formalized what I was already doing.

2018

Aelucoop — First UX Designer role

First professional experience as a UX Designer — innovation lead within six months of joining.

2017

Pucallpa — Peke peke canoe

Navigating the river by motor canoe — one of those experiences you don't plan, you live.

2016

Cusco to Urubamba by bike

Riding through Maras and Moray — the kind of trip that only makes sense while you're doing it.

2016

El Tablero de Otto opens its doors

My hobby store sees the light of day — and without knowing it, my design career begins.

2015

Freelance Web Developer

First steps as a front-end developer — the bridge between technology and design.

2014

Digital Marketing Specialization

UP program completed — the foundations of user- and business-oriented thinking.

2014

Grand Prix Santiago — Magic

My first major international Magic tournament — the game that would lead me to start a business.

2013

Oxapampa by bike and on foot

All of Oxapampa by bicycle plus trekking in Yanachaga-Chemillén National Park.

2013

Interbank Bancassurance

Mass Insurance Analytics — data was always part of how I work.

2012

Tiendas Ripley — First job

The professional starting point — where I learned that customer experience is everything.

2012

PUCP graduate — Computer Engineering

The degree that opened doors I didn't even know existed.

2011

BCP Mobile Banking — Founding team member

One of the founders of BCP's mobile banking team — when smartphones were just getting started.

2011

Cusco — Rafting on the Vilcanota

A university trip that included an epic fall in the river — and I survived to tell it.

2011

BCP — Second internship

Process improvement in the branch channel — learning how a bank works from the inside.

2009

BCP — First internship

Strategic Channel Planning — my first real contact with the corporate world.

2007

Scout Troop Leader — Valle de Vitor - Misticamp

Campout in Arequipa — the most honest leadership I exercised before entering the professional world.

Let's talk.

If you're building something that matters and need someone who connects the why with the how — let's talk. Whether it's a product that needs clarity, a team that needs direction, or simply a conversation about strategic design in LATAM.

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