Dun & Bradstreet: KYC & Risk Analytics

Subtitle: Enterprise Compliance Intelligence Platform Role: Senior Product Designer Timeline: 2022 → 2025 URL: https://hunterandbard.com/portfolio/dun-and-bradstreet

Summary

This foundational engagement, led by Daina Reed prior to Hunter & Bard, overhauled the KYC compliance screening workflows for Dun & Bradstreet. By architecting a new standard for risk intelligence visualization, the project directly contributed to the retention of multi-million dollar enterprise contracts and established a unified design language for D&B's global compliance suite.

Challenge

High-stakes compliance screening often suffers from information overload, where officers struggle to distinguish system-automated results from cases requiring critical manual attention. The challenge was to bridge the gap between complex database schemas and human-centric risk assessment. The mission required a total redesign of the end-to-end investigation workflow, balancing rigorous WCAG accessibility standards with the technical constraints of a massive legacy infrastructure.

Key Decisions

Cognitive Load Segmentation

To reduce decision paralysis, the team architected a workspace that separates system-adjudicated entities from those requiring manual review.

Impact: This allowed compliance officers to prioritize high-risk investigations immediately, increasing throughput and accuracy.

Schema-to-Insight Transformation

Rather than forcing users to decode raw database hierarchies, the design translated complex data into a 'glanceable' visual language of flags and excerpts.

Impact: Officers could assess entity risk at a glance, significantly accelerating the adjudication cycle.

Functional Accessibility Architecture

When technical constraints limited custom screen-reader support, the team prioritized functional accessibility over visual aesthetics, working within existing component libraries to ensure total compliance.

Impact: The product shipped with genuine WCAG accessibility, ensuring the platform remained viable for high-stakes government and enterprise contracts.

Outcomes

Learnings

Hunter & Bard

B2B Enterprise Strategy & Positioning Consultants

Hunter & Bard is a San Francisco-based B2B strategy consultancy founded in 2011 by Shira Abel. We help deep-tech and enterprise SaaS companies fix their positioning, sharpen their messaging, and close $100K+ deals.

What We Do

We work with B2B leaders who are tired of being overlooked, underestimated, or mistaken for their competitors. Our specialty is turning complex, technical products into clear, compelling stories that win enterprise deals.

Our Approach

We believe that perception drives revenue. If your buyers can't tell you apart from the next vendor in 30 seconds, you have a positioning problem — not a marketing problem. We fix that.

The Perception Formula

Perception = (Story × Visibility) ÷ Noise

This framework drives everything we do. Your story has to be sharp. Your visibility has to be strategic. And you have to cut through the noise — not add to it.

Services

Leadership

Shira Abel — Founder & CEO. Kellogg MBA. 20+ years in B2B marketing. Former CMO. Keynote speaker. Published in Forbes, HuffPost, and Wired. Specialist in enterprise positioning and perception strategy.

Daina Reed — Founding Designer & Partner. 15+ years in product and brand design. Former Senior Product Designer at Dun & Bradstreet. Specialist in enterprise UX, visual identity, and design systems.

Contact