16+
Years of Experience
I know what's worth building, and what isn't.
I design enterprise systems that handle real complexity.
I'm Michel Velis, Product Designer at Bitovi. For 16+ years I've designed inside some of the most operationally complex digital products in enterprise software: risk intelligence for a leading credit rating agency, contracting platforms for pharma, agricultural data systems used by farm managers in the field, and the first Paycheck Protection Program loan processing solution brought to market during the pandemic, designed under an emergency federal timeline.
My job isn't to make things look good. It's to decide what's worth building, shape how it gets built, and stay close enough to engineering that what ships matches what was designed. I write front-end code, so I understand production constraints before I start designing, not after. The results: faster design-to-dev handoff, fewer UI bug reports after standardizing the component library, and an idea-to-prototype cycle that dropped from days to hours with AI agents.
Before enterprise software I designed album art and merchandise for touring artists, where brand identity had to land in three seconds or not at all. That taught me design isn't decoration. It's how you earn trust before anyone reads a word. I've carried that instinct into every product since. Bilingual in English and Spanish. Figma-certified. And genuinely interested in what AI unlocks for design, and what it still gets wrong.
Core Design Values
UsefulConsideredBeautifulWell made
These are my core design values, and I strive to imbue them in all of the work I do. I’ve always been making things and inventing ways to improve my surroundings. Solving a tangible need with a beautiful solution is a practice I love and resides in my core. Collaborating with a team to create a far better outcome than otherwise possible alone gives me energy.
I like thinking big, working fast, yet carefully, holistically, long-term, sustainably, cross-functionally, zooming out on company strategy, and zooming in on details. I’m always improving, growing, and executing to the highest standard possible. All while achieving a larger mission, connecting my work to something deeper, tethered to improving the world, leaving it better than when I began.
Four disciplines. One standard.
Useful, considered, beautiful, well made: here's how those values cash out across strategy, systems, outcomes, and AI workflows. They only work when they're connected, and connecting them is where most of the real work happens.
Product Strategy
Leading product design for Fortune 500 enterprises and startups across FinTech, AgTech, and SaaS: 5+ discovery workshops and 12+ user interviews defining core product requirements for clients like Yum! Brands and a leading credit rating agency. At KlearTrust, design strategy secured executive buy-in and full funding for the build.
Design Systems
Co-led PwC's global design system: 150+ core components and a governance model adopted by 16 international product teams. At Bitovi, I set the component-library architecture standard now used across 5 client engagements, with Storybook and Figma Code Connect keeping design tokens and production components in parity. Design systems are trust infrastructure, not bureaucracy.
Outcomes-Driven Design
I measure what matters: UI bug reports down 35% quarter-over-quarter after standardizing the component library. 26 KPIs consolidated into self-serve dashboards, replacing 37 ad-hoc data requests a month. The KlearTrust patient portal taken from ambiguous 0-to-1 concept to production with zero post-launch design escalations.
AI Workflows
AI is both accelerator and catalyst: it speeds up what teams already do and changes what they can attempt. I build the agentic infrastructure and the governance layer. At a leading credit rating agency, MCP servers I built with Spring AI let internal AI agents pull live application context and scaffold prototypes on demand, cutting idea-to-prototype time from 2 days to 3 hours across departments. You get the velocity of autonomous tooling without the drift, because judgment never leaves the humans accountable for the system. Accountability doesn't transfer to a loop.
Skills, Interests & Education
Skills
Education
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Graphic Design
The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale — 2010 – 2013
Associate of Arts and Sciences (AAS), Graphic and Web Design
Keiser University — 2008 – 2010
Certifications
Figma Professional Certification — 2026
Fullstory Certified — 2025
When I'm not designing
Outside of work, I prioritize time with my family, friends and being outdoors. To keep my creative spark alive, I lean into tactile hobbies like cooking and working with wood, and I love exploring the city at night. You'll also find me at the gym, or out walking my rebellious husky.
Family & friends
Being outdoors
Cooking
Working with wood
City nights
Gym sessions
Walking my rebellious husky
Open for work
Currently taking on new challenges
If you're building something ambitious, need a designer who ships, or want an agentic, AI-ready design system your tools can read as fluently as your team does: let's talk.
Get in touch