Ilko Bakatliev’s CX Mission in Vietnam’s Banking Revolution
In the fast-changing world of Vietnam’s digital transformation, Ilko Bakatliev isn’t just leading a team—he’s helping shape the future of banking. As Head of Experience Design at Techcombank, one of Vietnam’s most respected and progressive banks, he is pushing the boundaries of what it means to be truly customer-centric. His journey is a mix of bold ideas, humble leadership, and a deep belief in design as a strategic advantage.
Who is Ilko Bakatliev?
Ilko’s career has taken him across continents—from his early days in Amsterdam where he designed the first Smart TV interfaces at Philips to a transformative chapter of digital awakening at HSBC in London, and now to Hanoi. With more than two decades of experience, he’s worked across industries and various types of organizations. “Getting into product and service design design and creating products that help people live better lives—was a big moment for me,” he said.
At HSBC, Ilko helped shift the organization from a product-led mindset to a customer-focused one by building bridges and collaborations across functions. “We had people from risk and legal observe customer testing and customer interviews and seeing firsthand what that meant,” he explained. He also started a design forum that grew into a global community event: “When I joined, it was just three or four of us. When I left, it was a global forum for the entire bank with practitioners from product, risk, legal, data and tech watching trends and discussing fresh ideas.”
Today, at Techcombank, he leads a team of 45 designers, researchers, service designers, and copywriters. It’s rumoured to be the largest experience design team in the region.
Understanding the brand: Techcombank
Techcombank is Vietnam’s fourth-largest bank. With 13 million customers and a bold digital vision, the company is at the forefront of redefining banking in Southeast Asia. It operates like a traditional bank—with branches and call centres—but it’s also seen as a Fintech pioneer because of the way it leads the digital agenda in Vietnam.
The challenge: making CX and XD more than a department
When Ilko joined Techcombank, the organization was already on a transformation path. Still, it was clear that CX and XD needed deeper integration.
Key challenges included:
- Moving from a feature-driven mindset to a customer value-driven approach.
- Demonstrating that design is more than just “screens and pixels”—it’s about solving real problems.
- Aligning diverse functions (risk, legal, marketing, business) around the customer journey.
- Building a sustainable design culture that could live beyond individual contributors.
The solution: A holistic approach - building systems, collaboration models and culture
Ilko’s work at Techcombank touches various parts of the organization. Some of the key changes that have taken place as a result:
• Increased rigour around the customer journey – “We shifted the role of design to the left significantly,” Ilko explained, “and got involved in proposition and offering design”. Ilko’s team drove the creation of strategic governance control gates around the customer journey which helped bullet-proof new propositions prior to entering the delivery process.
• Designing for internal customers – Ilko’s team increased its remit and influence through helping redesign processes and workflows within the back office, frontline and HR teams, alongside the efforts dedicated to external customers.
• Introducing service design – A relatively new capability for the region. Ilko built a dedicated team and rolled out journey mapping and blueprinting tools across the bank.
• Opening a research lab – “Apparently it’s the first in-house research lab in a Vietnamese bank,” Ilko shared. “With observation rooms and workshop spaces, it’s become a hub for insight gathering and collaboration.”
• Training internal Design Thinking tutors – Ilko’s team now includes certified design thinking instructors who are training staff across the bank.
• “Designing for Trust” program – A cultural initiative that got leaders across divisions (from HR to the branch network) to be hands-on with design thinking methods. “We held three editions that had real cultural ripples within the organization,” he said.
Impact: from insight to measurable results
Techcombank’s customer experience results speak for themselves. The retail banking achieved the highest NPS to date. “It’s the result of very hard work by multiple teams,” Ilko noted. NPS is embedded in KPIs across various roles, ensuring everyone shares accountability of the customer experience.
In addition to NPS, the bank tracks usual metrics like completion times, error, retention, and conversion rates. “Experience design is notoriously tricky to measure exactly, but we’re continuously integrating the voice of the customer end-to-end, being data and insight driven in every step of the way.”
Lessons learned: Ilko’s advice for CX professionals
Ilko’s experience has taught him that CX leadership is as much about mindset than methods. Here’s what he shared:
• Focus on the problem – “Always focus on the problem that you’re solving and try to deeply understand both the customer and the business. The What comes first, the How follows”
• Operationalise principles – “Something I did here straight away was to create a set of experience principles which are connected to various governance practices.” These are not just slogans — they guide peer reviews and design decisions.
• Understand the bigger picture – The better customer experience is the one that involves looking beyond individual interactions and seeing the customer needs in the context of the entire customer experience infrastructure.
• Connect insights: Collect Voice of the Customer insights from diverse sources (interviews, surveys, complaints, social media listening) and overlay them with behavioral data demonstrating what customers really do. That’s how you arrive at an accurate, all-round view.
• Blueprint everything – “Blueprints (using the term in a broader sense than service blueprints) provide architectural clarity … the more you create them and the more you connect them, the more you get a clearer understanding of the experience.”
• Befriend constraints – Whether it’s regulation or organizational infrastructure, constraints are a unique stimulant for creative thinking and innovation.
• Empower others – The ultimate goal is not just to deliver results, but to create future leaders and systems that thrive without you.
• Fail, learn, succeed – To succeed is to have failed spectacularly, learned from it and reached new heights. Your battle scars are your greatest credentials.
Final thoughts
Ilko’s story is one of thoughtful leadership and cultural impact. “I don’t think I’ve ever operated with a bigger sense of legacy than I do in my current role at Techcombank,” he reflected. “My main focus is to elevate the team and build the necessary foundations to enable local leadership. There’s a palpable excitement about this experience - I have often been part of banking transformation journeys but never before part of the transformation of a nation - this happens once in a lifetime.”
From re-imaging design practices in one of the most progressive Asian banks to opening new spaces for insight and collaboration, Ilko is demonstrating what truly means to lead by design.