Capital One has snatched a designer from Google's touted advanced technology and projects team to help boost the bank's mobile commerce and payments technology development.
Dan Makoski
Makoski was a noted designer behind Google's modular Project Ara smartphone project and also involved in Microsoft's original Surface touchscreen tabletop.
In today's fast-paced technology environment, the surprise factor in the move of a prominent designer from the Silicon Valley environment to the banking industry is not lost on Makoski.
"I don't blame you if you're like a few of my colleagues who think I'm a bit insane to leave one of the world's most admired tech companies for a bank," Makoski says in the July 2 blog post. "But what you might not understand is that there are few spaces as ripe for technology and human-inspired re-imagination as how people relate to their money."
Makoski didn't reveal much about what Capital One had in mind for him when he reported to work this week.
"I'll be working out of the San Francisco studio, building a money team, focused on bold, breakthrough transformations that will help people connect with their finances in meaningful and delightful ways," Makoski says. "That's about all I can say at the moment... let the work speak for itself over the upcoming months."
Makoski notes that Capital One has been "steadily building a quiet but extraordinary design thinking strategy and execution culture on top of its already legendary data analytics capability."
JPMorgan Chase has also looked outside the banking industry for mobile app designers with the recent hire of Yahoo design exec Tim Parsey.
