Prestige Beauty Pilot

Headless CMS + Enterprise Design System

Challenge

A newly acquired prestige beauty brand came with a legal mandate: migrate to company infrastructure within 3 months or breach compliance. Leadership seized the opportunity to run the migration as a pilot validating a composable stack (in-house e-commerce, headless CMS, PIM, and a token-driven design system to connect them all), intended as a template for a multi-brand, multi-region portfolio of 20+ brands. The clock was non-negotiable. So was getting it right: we baked in the follow-up roadmap to fix every shortcut the deadline forced. Reader: we succeeded.

Outcomes

JSON modeling: 30k lines replaced

Regional rollout enablement: US, UK, AU

Editorial workflow validation: In-page preview

Overview

From 2023 to 2025, a prestige beauty brand pilot proved a Composable Content & Design Ecosystem could unify headless CMS and design systems at enterprise scale. The program validated token-driven theming, CMS-agnostic content modeling, and multi-stack integration across US, UK, and AU, while surfacing governance and execution challenges that shaped future enterprise adoption.

Challenge

• Legacy Drupal CMS was deeply customized, engineers resistant to MACH/headless architecture.
• Parallel stacks (Liquid vs. Elixir/Phoenix) created platform complexity.
• Governance gaps (brand sign-off delays, unclear ownership).
• Design system immaturity slowed engineering and reusability.
• Localization and preview workflows underdeveloped, leading to rework.
• Tech Debt: Compressed timelines forced compromises on both the design system token implementation and CMS content model. These shortcuts accumulated, requiring explicit future investment to correct.

My Role

• Product Lead across CMS + Enterprise Design System (EDS) workstreams
• Defined scope, sequencing, and vendor evaluation
• Architected token → component → content block mapping
• Built governance processes (intake, reviews, training)
• Coordinated phased rollout
• Explicitly flagged tech debt carve-outs for token schema, CMS content model, and FE component implementation, ensuring leadership acknowledged the need to retool post-launch.

Process

• Pilot Structure: Multi-stack rollout to validate CMS + EDS architecture
• Additional Tactics: Reusable, brand-agnostic content model
• CMS-agnostic positioning to reduce vendor lock-in
• Education on modular design principles for both engineering and design

Key Outcomes

✅ JSON modeling replaced typical 30k lines of legacy Drupal code ✅ Tokenized theming enabled scalable regional rollout ✅ In-page preview critical to editorial workflows ❌ Compressed timelines created rework and delivery strain ❌ Localization and scheduling features lagged ❌ Tech debt from rushed token and CMS content model implementations required dedicated re-architecture efforts post-pilot

Visuals / Artifacts

Strategic Impact

The Brand.com pilot validated a Composable Content & Design Ecosystem, proving CMS + EDS integration as a scalable enterprise strategy. Lessons shaped governance, vendor RFPs, and modernization roadmaps, accelerating transition away from legacy Drupal7 and creating a blueprint for multi-brand adoption. Explicit acknowledgement of tech debt also informed enterprise planning — carving out time and budget for retooling token schema and content models to ensure long-term resilience.

Reflection

The central tension: platform capability vs. execution under pressure. By embedding governance, codifying lessons, and being honest about tech debt, the pilot transformed delivery friction into a foundation for enterprise-wide speed, scalability, and systemized design + content operations. Retooling tokens and content models post-pilot wasn’t just cleanup; it was the crucial step that made the ecosystem sustainable for the long haul.

Key Questions

How did you deliver a composable stack migration under a 3-month compliance deadline?

By treating the compliance deadline as a fixed constraint and sequencing work backward from it. The delivery plan made tech debt explicit from the start, with a documented remediation roadmap to address the shortcuts the timeline forced. The deadline was met; the roadmap kept the debt from becoming permanent.

What is your experience with enterprise design systems at scale?

As Principal PM on the composable stack pilot, Bex architected the token-to-component-to-content-block mapping for the token-driven design system and built governance processes including intake, review cycles, and training. The system was validated for multi-brand, multi-region deployment across US, UK, and AU.

How did you handle tech debt on a compressed delivery timeline?

By naming it explicitly rather than ignoring it. The pilot delivery plan included a documented remediation roadmap identifying the shortcuts the deadline forced, giving leadership a clear picture of the follow-on investment required. Post-pilot retooling of the token schema and content model was budgeted and executed.