Kinza Muzahir
Experience Strategist, Project Lead
Designing a Scalable Digital Experience for a Merging Maritime Enterprise
Designing a Scalable Digital Experience for a Merging Maritime Enterprise
B2B, Industrial Marine Transportation, Fleeting and Diesel Services along the Gulf Intracoastal and U.S. Inland Waterways.
Led experience strategy during an active merger in a safety-critical, highly regulated maritime industry, unifying two legacy operators supporting high-value, high-liability cargo —where ESG compliance, operational clarity, and continuity were non-negotiable.
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My Role:
- Responsible for end-to-end discovery and experience strategy in direct partnership with the VP of Strategic Development (client) and Director of IT (client), translating business goals into a clear digital roadmap for a post-merger organization.
- Conducted and presented research, interviews, audits, and competitive review, synthesizing insights into success criteria tied to growth, recruiting, and operational efficiency.
- Accountable for sitemapping, user flows, wireframes, QA, and creative concepting, aligning brand, UX, creative, and technical requirements prior to development.
- Served as the primary liaison between client leadership and a 10+ person cross-functional team across UX, brand, creative, and engineering, supporting an on-time, on-budget launch.
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Outcomes:
- Reduced merger risk by delivering a single, trusted digital source of truth for employees, customers, and candidates during a high stakes organizational transition.
- Improved decision speed and clarity by restructuring the information architecture so critical actions (careers, contact, services, portals) were reachable in ≤2 clicks.
- Identified that ~70–80% of job seekers accessed the site on mobile and prioritized a mobile-first careers experience, reducing friction in role discovery and application user flows during a critical hiring period.
- Increased operational efficiency by implementing scalable CMS and SharePoint workflows, reducing reliance on external teams post-launch.
A Change-Management System
The new Southern Devall digital experience became a shared reference point during a high-stakes merger, helping employees, customers, and partners understand the new organization and trust what came next. It also supported recruiting and customer engagement, and gave the business a durable platform to scale.
The new Southern Devall digital experience became a shared reference point during a high-stakes merger, helping employees, customers, and partners understand the new organization and trust what came next. It also supported recruiting and customer engagement, and gave the business a durable platform to scale.
Southern Devall: Branded House
2021–2024 Phased Merger
Southern Towing Company and Devall Towing unified under a single owner (CCI), operating as sister companies through 2023 before formally launching as Southern Devall in Q1 2024, launching Devall Diesel Services and Devall Fleeting as subsidiaries.
Southern Towing Company and Devall Towing unified under a single owner (CCI), operating as sister companies through 2023 before formally launching as Southern Devall in Q1 2024, launching Devall Diesel Services and Devall Fleeting as subsidiaries.
Led the experience strategy from discovery to go-live for:
- SouthernDevall.com, unifying Devall Towing and Southern Towing Company into a single corporate website with a dedicated Devall Fleeting section.
- A standalone Devall Diesel Services website to support focused lead generation and improve discoverability of emergency and service offerings.
- Integration of SharePoint into the internal digital ecosystem to support documentation access and operational workflows.
Homepage for SouthernDevall.com
Homepage for DevallDiesel.com
Reinforced credibility, culture, and operational scale by:
- Integrating the new corporate brand and subsidiary identity systems and business suites across customer touch points.
- Strategically incorporating recruiting and corporate video content into the website experience to communicate the merger narrative and support hiring and customer journeys.
- Planning and incorporating on-location photography and video assets (Port Victoria, Houston Ship Channel, Sulphur) into the digital experience.
Experience Strategy in Service of Growth
Southern Devall’s merger coincided with aggressive growth goals: expanding share in specialty chemicals and liquified gas, scaling subsidiaries, improving operational efficiency, and recruiting skilled talent—while maintaining trust in a risk-heavy, safety-critical industry.
Business Goal
Business Goal
Experience Implication
Grow Chemical & Liquified Gas Share
Grow Chemical & Liquified Gas Share
Website needed to establish credibility, clearly communicate specialized capabilities, and support conversion.
Reinforced brand credibility post-merger through a cohesive narrative and homepage hierarchy
Prioritized clarity and trust over marketing language to support high-risk, high-value chemical transport decisions.
Expand Diesel & Fleeting Subsidiaries
Expand Diesel & Fleeting Subsidiaries
Subsidiaries required their own distinct digital presence with clearer discoverability and lead paths.
Structured the platform to scale subsidiaries independently without fragmenting the brand.
Identified personas and designed clear journeys, user flows and CTAs to reduce dead ends and move customers, partners, and candidates toward high-intent inquiries/actions.
Improve Internal Efficiency & Operations
Improve Internal Efficiency & Operations
Needed CMS, portals, and SharePoint integrations to reduce friction.
Improved usability across desktop and mobile to support field, office, and low-connectivity users
Implemented CMS and internal systems to reduce operational dependency on external teams
Scale Recruiting
Scale Recruiting
Careers experience needed to be accessible, responsive and transparent
User behavior revealed that candidates primarily accessed careers content on phones and needed clear signals around risks, stability, and on-the-job realities.
Built a mobile-first careers experience that conveyed attention to safety standards, benefit expectations, and growth paths, helping candidates quickly assess fit across roles and experience levels.
By grounding experience decisions in real user behavior and business needs, the platform was built to scale with the organization—not just launch it. The result is a single digital foundation supporting 3 brands across 2 standalone sites, along with a self-service CMS and portal ecosystem that continues to support the business beyond the merger.
Lessons Learned
- Navigated a safety-critical, ESG-regulated project where design decisions had to align with compliance documentation, not just brand or usability goals.
- Balanced strict budgets and approvals while delivering both low and high-fidelity prototypes, including an interactive map and custom photo/video assets, under regulatory and accuracy constraints.
- Prioritized documentation, traceability, and stakeholder alignment to reduce risk and prevent misinterpretation across internal and external teams.
- Rapidly built domain expertise on a highly specialized industry to inform design and strategy decisions.
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