Career
Design leader with 18+ years in product design, UX/UI, and design leadership — scaling teams, design systems, and design operations from the ground up. I hire and coach talent, embed design in strategic planning, and turn UX research into measurable outcomes: recent work has cut support tickets by ~35% and call-handling time by ~20%. Currently focused on AI-era design leadership, and speaking internationally on the subject.
Experience
Head of DesignPromotedCase study
- Lead design strategy for a fast-scaling, cross-functional product org — grew the UX team from 2 to 4 through 2 hires I made and onboarded.
- Coach for ownership within empowered teams: mentored a mid-level designer to senior (now facing promotion) and a junior toward a strong generalist range.
- Established AI-assisted design workflows — shared skills, guardrails, agent workflows — freeing the team to focus on user understanding over mechanical work.
- Shifted design critiques from surface polish to problem-solving rigor, keeping design as the quality gate as AI adoption scales.
Senior UX DesignerCase study
- Owned design strategy for eManager, Element Logic's flagship AutoStore robotics interface, aligning 5 engineering teams around a shared vision — work that led directly to my promotion into Head of Design.
- Built the eManager design system from scratch — tokens, components, documentation — as the single source of truth for the interface.
- Partnered continuously with developers to keep design and implementation aligned, rather than handing off finished specs.
- Began building strategic systems and processes with product managers, extending design's reach beyond individual features.
Product Design & DesignOps LeadCase study
- Rebuilt Futurehome's mobile app navigation from a sprawling, ad-hoc menu into 5 logical sections — cutting top-level navigation from 12 to 5 and reducing 'where do I find X' support tickets by ~35%.
- Grounded the redesign in research — personas, feature audits, and behavior mapping — replacing reliance on the existing menu structure.
- Prototyped and documented the full flow (login, dashboard, consumption, automations, settings) for engineering handoff.
- Cut taps to view today's energy consumption from 3 to 1, delivering WCAG-compliant designs against tight deadlines.
Senior Product Designer
- Collaborated closely with engineering to deliver precise, pixel-perfect designs within GoTo's existing product system.
- Maintained WCAG accessibility standards while shipping complex features on tight deadlines, introducing design reviews to catch issues early.
- Documented projects thoroughly, strengthening cross-team collaboration and keeping agile delivery moving.
Design Team LeaderCase study
- Rebuilt the operator's call-handling 'cockpit' into fixed zones (script, customer context, controls), cutting average call-handling time by ~20%.
- Built the product's first design system from scratch and rolled it out with a design team I hired and built from zero.
- Shadowed live calls and mapped always-visible vs. on-demand information needs before redesigning the layout.
- Cut new-agent ramp-up time from 3 weeks to 2 and reduced mid-call escalations from lost context by roughly a third.
Design lecturer
- Volunteered as instructor for Code.X's Code for Albania program, teaching human-centered design to aspiring designers.
- Delivered hands-on training in design thinking, UX research, and usability testing methods.
- Guided students through prototyping exercises, turning research insights into testable design solutions.
Senior Project Manager
- Led UX/UI design and delivery for Ericsson's MWC 2020 sales demo, owning the project from concept through execution.
- Conducted user research to shape the demo experience and coordinated scheduling across cross-functional teams.
- Managed cross-team execution against a fixed deadline (the event was ultimately cancelled due to COVID).
Senior Business Analyst & UX Designer
- Led the transformation of a monolithic internal application into a user-centric service for a global user base.
- Ran global user research and journey mapping to identify pain points and prioritize redesign work.
- Tracked delivery against OKRs, aligning design decisions with measurable business goals.
Development Team Leader
- Led cross-functional C/C++/Java teams building a V2X (vehicle-to-everything) solution.
- Introduced agile practices and OKRs, improving delivery predictability across teams.
- Built delivery analytics and reporting for leadership to track progress and surface risks early.
Senior Project Manager
- Led project execution and a 9–12 person international engineering team on Volvo's self-driving car program.
- Partnered closely with Nvidia to align technical milestones and cross-team delivery.
Scrum MasterReturned from maternity break
- Drove resource allocation and process improvements across 12 core development teams, negotiating priorities between development and project teams.
- Facilitated the rollout of agile processes and routines, promoting knowledge sharing and transparency across teams.
- Reported weekly progress and improvements to upper management, adhering to preset KPIs to keep delivery on track.
UI developer
- Designed and maintained the UI and design system for NNG's car and pedestrian navigation software.
- Ensured design consistency across releases shipped for multiple car manufacturers and iPhone.
- Collaborated with engineering to implement UI components within platform constraints.
Education
Master of Business Administration
Accounting, finance, project management, law, economics, marketing, and HR. Thesis on early-stage company management.
Bachelor of Arts
Business, economics, marketing, and project management. Thesis on motivating creative teams.
Skills
Leadership
- Design Leadership
- Executive Alignment
- Mentorship & Coaching
- People & Stakeholder Management
Product & Research
- UX Research
- Usability Testing
- Cross-functional Strategy
- Design Craft & Quality
- Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA)
Systems & Ops
- Design Systems
- Design Operations
- Org & Team Strategy
- Hiring & Talent Growth
- Roadmapping & Documentation
Tools & practice
- Figma
- Prototyping
- Information Architecture
- AI-Assisted Design Workflows
- Public Speaking