Shanelle Roberts

Acquisition Researcher · Systems Designer

Shanelle Roberts

I've built and proven the same acquisition system twice. Once for banks and credit unions. Once for an entirely different industry. Same method, same results, and you can check both.

Twenty years designing acquisition systems for institutions like T‑Mobile and Wilmington Trust, now validated across two industries with the same Friction Index method. This page is the record: the work, the results, and the standard I hold when your institution's name is on the line.

My Record at a Glance

Numbers you can check.

20
Years in product, UX research & systems design
1
U.S. Utility Patent, T‑Mobile
2.5
Years inside a regional bank
2B+
Robocalls stopped by Scam Shield in 18 months
112
Texas banks & credit unions scored in 2026
8‑figure
Outcomes tied to my design work

Institutions I’ve Designed For

Why This Work

Built from the inside.
Answering to no vendor.

Shanelle Roberts

Shanelle RobertsAcquisition Researcher
& Systems Designer

I spent twenty years building product and acquisition systems inside large institutions: T‑Mobile, Microsoft, Expedia, The Home Depot, and two and a half years inside a regional bank. I watched fraud keep executives up at night. I watched vendor decisions quietly determine what a bank could and could not do for its customers. And I watched qualified applicants walk away from digital experiences that no dashboard ever logged as a loss.

I built whereborrowersleave.com because I was sick of watching community banks and credit unions get taken advantage of by vendors, and their members pay the price for it.

As a female entrepreneur who loves beauty and luxury, coupled with the design, technical and business skills to help my fellow female business owners and builders, it is important to me to lend that expertise to them too. Smart Chic Beauty is the brand that allows me to serve them and deliver results you won't get in your typical design or marketing agency.

My work follows a progression, and it starts with diagnosis, not a contract. A Signal Report reads your digital signals in the marketplace and names the ones costing you borrowers, including compliance risks and the fraud risks your applicants both face and perceive. The Borrower Experience Audit adds a narrated video walkthrough of your online loan application. The Borrower Experience Review brings it all together: the report, the audit, and a prototype I present to your executive team that shows what your front door looks like when the warning and critical signals are addressed and the page moves from brochure to conversion focused.

Each engagement is a fixed fee with a defined scope, and the smaller diagnostics come first on purpose. They build the relationship and prove whether we're the right fit for each other before anything bigger is on the table. No finding gets softened, because the findings are the product.

I worked for too many bosses whose philosophy was over‑promise and under‑deliver. It's my main business pet peeve, and I decided to do something different. I actively look to underpromise and overdeliver, in my life and in my work.

I wrote the same standard into a book: REAWAKEN: 10 Actions to Take Back a Very Intense Ownership of Your Life, published in 2020. Off the clock, I've traveled to 10 countries across 3 continents, including North Korea, and played competitive golf in college.

Shanelle Roberts, signed

Due Diligence

My past work that earns the read.

2016T‑Mobile

Scam Shield, iOS

I designed v1 of the iOS Scam Shield experience, T‑Mobile's consumer defense against phone fraud. It stopped more than two billion robocalls in its first 18 months, and the self‑serve experience saved T‑Mobile $5M in customer care costs. Fraud protection at that scale is design work, not marketing work.

2018T‑Mobile

United States Utility Patent

Granted for one‑click conference calling at T‑Mobile. Patent No. 10,033,873, a matter of public record you can verify at the USPTO. Patents are not handed out for decks. They are granted for systems that work.

2022–24Wilmington Trust

First secure digital payment experience

I led the design team that built the institution's first secure digital payment experience, after fraud had already cost the bank mid eight figures. Two and a half years inside a regional bank taught me how these institutions are structured, how decisions get approved, and exactly what it costs when a qualified applicant drops out of a digital flow.

2026Where Borrowers Leave

112 Texas institutions scored

I scored 112 Texas banks and credit unions with $1B to $10B in assets across 46 borrower friction signals. 86% of the signals checked came back as friction, not a pass. The research is published, and it is the foundation of every diagnostic I sell.

Twenty Years Across

The institutions behind the record.

T‑Mobile
Wilmington Trust
M&T Bank
Microsoft
Expedia
The Home Depot
UN World Food Programme
General Assembly

How I Operate

Believing Loyalty.
The standard behind the work.

Every engagement runs on one operating principle: outcomes are built on truth, accountability, and disciplined execution, never on shortcuts or spin. Here is what that means when you hire me.

Truth over optics

You get the findings as they are, not softened for the room. If the evidence is thin, I say so. If the problem is yours, I name it.

Ownership over explanation

I don't complete tasks and disappear. I own whether the work actually holds, and I surface issues early instead of explaining them late.

Precision over speed shortcuts

Nothing leaves my desk on "it should work." Every finding is validated before you see it, because your board will ask, and you deserve to have the answer.

Stewardship over personal preference

Your customers' trust and your institution's data are a responsibility, not a convenience. Credentials are encrypted, access is restricted, and nothing is kept longer than the work requires.

My Beliefs

What I stand for.

You should know who you're hiring before you hire them. These are the convictions behind the work, stated plainly.

American worker first.

We shouldn't be laying off Americans and employing non‑Americans when there are Americans available and skilled enough to do the job. In tech and finance especially, it's too big a national security and fraud risk. Every American citizen and college graduate deserves gainful, permanent, full‑time work in the field they hold expertise in.

AI ends the cheap‑labor argument.

Artificial intelligence, in the right hands, makes cheap foreign workers obsolete. The efficiencies and systems AI adds to a skilled worker's output mean smart executives will invest in and bet on the people willing to adapt and use it, not the people who simply cost less. AI can help build the systems that run the next 250 years of business, but it will only ever be as good as the people running it. Low‑skill, low‑effort workers will ship AI slop at scale. High‑skill, high‑effort workers will deliver business outcomes we can't yet imagine.

Fraud followed the workforce.

I believe the meteoric rise in fraud is directly related to the number of non‑American workers imported over the last 35 years, and especially over the last 10. I watched fraud keep bank and credit union executives up at night while the hiring decisions that fed the risk went unexamined.

Culture, temperament, and merit determine success.

An organization rises or falls on who it hires. Importing people into the country and hiring people who oppose your company's values and the country's values is bad for business.

Lawbreakers deserve swift justice.

And strong punishment, regardless of whether the crime appears to have victims or not. A rule that goes unenforced is not a rule. Institutions that tolerate small violations invite large ones.

Quality of leads beats volume.

Flooding a broken system with more leads is a reputational risk, and it doesn't fix the underlying issues. Fix the system first. Then, and only then, turn up the volume.

Purpose, Mission & Vision

Take back ownership
of the infrastructure.

My purpose is to help community banks and credit unions take back ownership of their core banking infrastructure and the technology that runs it. We do it by banding together to combat the private equity takeover model and the transhumanist agenda that big tech and the globalists seem hellbent on bringing to life. The “you will own nothing and be happy” lie they've been trying to feed us for decades.

What it looks like

A cooperative that solves the group's core banking infrastructure and technology issues collectively. Owned, run, and operated by American citizens only, and powered by AI. We stop relying on vendors who aren't American citizens and keep their tech workers offshore, and we cut off most of the fraud at the gate.

How it works

We replace non‑American workers with Americans and empower them with artificial intelligence to do their best work at scale. It starts in Texas, because Texas has more banks and credit unions than any other state in the country.

Inquire About the Mission

On AI

AI is a force multiplier.
Not a replacement.

Every organization is having two AI conversations at once. One is about making the work better. The other is about making the work cheaper by replacing the people who do it. These are not the same conversation, and I don't treat them as if they are.

AI should make the humans in the room significantly better at their work. The human drives the strategy and makes the judgment call, because they bear the responsibility for the outcomes AI produces. You can't currently sue an AI.

AI augments. Humans decide.

The cost of a wrong decision is always borne by a person, not a system. AI can surface patterns, synthesize data, and communicate at scale. It cannot hold accountability. That stays with the designer, the strategist, the executive.

A force multiplier in practice

I use AI the way a researcher uses a thinking partner: to pressure‑test hypotheses, surface patterns across large data sets, and accelerate synthesis. The output is better. The human is still the author.

Where the risk lives

Deploying AI on top of a broken acquisition system doesn't fix the system. It automates the leak. AI applied to a flawed process produces flawed outcomes faster. The diagnostic comes before the automation.

Fit

Who I work with.

This is right if

  • You lead lending or the executive team at a regional bank, community bank, or credit union with $1B to $10B in assets.
  • You have an online application, and you suspect the experience is costing you customers.
  • You want a credible outside read before making the budget case for digital investment.
  • You want documented findings you can circulate and defend, not a sales pitch.

This is not right if

  • You need implementation now. My initial engagements are diagnostics. Build work is a separate scope after the diagnostics are completed.
  • You want an open-ended retainer or an agency relationship.
  • You want generic industry benchmarks rather than findings about your institution.
  • You're looking for more traffic. My work converts the intent you already have.

When I flag a gap, I can tell you whether it's specific to your bank or credit union or endemic to the industry. That is the difference twenty years makes.

Take the Fit Assessment

Where Borrowers Leave

The research is public.
The findings can be yours.

My diagnostics live at whereborrowersleave.com, built on the 112‑institution study. Three depths, each one building on the last. Start where it makes sense and go as deep as your board needs.

Start Here

Signal Report

$1,000Mortgage‑specific · Bank‑wide $1,500

A written diagnostic of the digital signals costing you borrowers, with compliance risks and fraud risks called out and ranked. Delivered in 3 business days. No meetings, no intake.

View the Signal Report
Go Deeper

Borrower Experience Audit

$3,000Report + narrated video

The Signal Report plus a narrated video walkthrough of your online loan application, recorded as a well‑qualified borrower. Every friction point and trust gap named in real time.

8 spots per month, shared with the Review

View the Audit
The Complete Picture

Borrower Experience Review

$7,000Report + audit + live prototype

Everything above, plus a coded prototype presented live to your executive team: your front door moved from brochure to conversion focused, so leadership sees what's possible before investing in a rebuild.

8 spots per month, shared with the Audit

View the Review

112 Texas banks and credit unions scored. 86% of every signal checked came back as friction, not a pass.

Read the Research

Fixed fees · Paid online · The Audit's full price applies toward the Review · The Audit and Review share 8 engagements per month

Training & Credentials

On the record.

U.S. Utility Patent No. 10,033,873, one‑click conference calling T‑Mobile · 2018
Lean UX & Agile Nielsen Norman Group · 2023
5,000+ mentorship minutes to working designers ADPList · 2022–2024
Product Management General Assembly · 2021
User Experience Design General Assembly · 2016

Contact

Tell me what's keeping you up at night in business.

Whether it's a leaking application funnel, a board that wants evidence, or a deal that needs an outside read. I respond within 2 business days. Prefer email? Write me directly at [email protected].

Name, work email, institution, and a short note are required.

The button opens an email to [email protected] in your mail client with your note prefilled. Nothing is stored on this page, and your information is never sold.

Within 2 business days

You get a reply from me, not an assistant and not a sequence. I read every note personally.

A straight answer

I'll point you to the right starting place. If I'm not the right fit, I'll say so and tell you why.

No obligation

No discovery call required, no follow-up campaign. Every engagement is a fixed fee you can buy when you're ready.

Next Step

Start with the work,
not a pitch.

Every engagement is a fixed fee, bought online, and delivered on a stated timeline. No discovery calls, no intake, no retainer. The findings are yours.

See the Diagnostics Read the Research
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