About
Hi 👋 I'm a design leader with ~20 years in design and team management, working for startups both in the 🇺🇸 US and 🇪🇺 EU.
Personal achievements: invited to teach before graduating, design studio acquired by a British agency, started an international digital design school. Ask me about it ☕️
Work Experience
Designing and leading the discovery of an AI-driven mobile app in the well-being space.
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Led the design team and the creative direction, while mentoring team members toward success
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Curated the product design and set up a new Design System and DesignOps tasks.
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Co-lead the creation of new products while helping define new product strategies.
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Established educational, strategic, and financial models while forming institutional and corporate partnerships
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Welcomed renowned international educators as guests
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Provided career-changing teaching and mentorship to students from non-tech backgrounds, from countries such as USA, Philippines, Spain, Russia, India, and others
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Mapped existing explorations and defined the next steps for the Alpha version, ensuring clear priorities.
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Conducted user tests and created detailed product specs, integrating them into the design system.
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Enhanced team clarity and focus, enabling efficient progress towards launch.
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Led discovery workshops, achieving user-centric solutions for several high-profile projects.
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Transformed complex data and processes into intuitive digital experiences.
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Delivered high-value UX solutions that garnered industry recognition and praise from stakeholders.
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As a PM, I shaped the product, filtered feedback, and supported the development team.
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As a Product Designer, I redesigned key features, writing new foundational principles for the product's look & feel.
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I also conducted User Research, maintained a design system, and improved client feedback together with various team members.
As Senior UX Designer, I was responsible for defining product objectives, organizing and conducting research, and prototyping new product experiences.
As Director of Digital Design, I handled high-profile accounts and oversaw digital project strategy and operations.
As the founder of my design studio, I managed a small team of 3, while performing as a Web Designer, Frontend Developer, and account manager.
Projects
My team and I built a design system that adjusted to different brands. This was done while building a new set of sister apps, for which we want to harness the power of design tokens and themes.
We also wanted to achieve design-code parity through close collaboration with developers and automatic code sync for basic styles.
A version of this article was also published by Supernova, one of the tools we used for the project.
7Mind’s well-known and established app needed a redesign but the tech debt was high.
As Head of Design, my team and I helped create a secondary app focused on sleep which not only expanded our offer but also served as an excuse to create a completely new design system and code base.
This project is under an NDA. To find out more about it, please get in touch ✉️
Decipad aimed to empower users with a low-code tool, but the challenge was immense.
Our team embarked on structuring this tool from the ground up, mapping user needs, and designing a robust system. Read more on how we built Decipad's Alpha version, transforming user experiences of a completely new product.
This project is under an NDA. To find out more about it, please get in touch ✉️
For 5 months, I led an open discovery and design processes with a large group of corporate stakeholders in order to create a digital version of a top-level financial report.
This report had been attempted before in a print or presentation format and was aimed at the company’s CEO and CTO. Due to lack of clarity if had failed in providing all the answers, as well as up-to-date information.
We discovered, built, and tested a digital solution that ultimately won an award.
This project is under an NDA. To find out more about it, please get in touch ✉️
Features
In this article featured by Supernova, I walk the reader through the creation of a multi-layered design system for two sibling brands, focusing on low maintenance, multi-brand compatibility, and automated code generation.
Speaking
Sara Ramos and Tiago Pedras are trying to revolutionize design education by making it student-centered and industry-led, inviting the audience to join this learning revolution.
As an industry, we need to clarify our role and advance faster and more responsibly as members of a growing community.
Is it possible to make teaching web design a truly responsive and adaptive process for beginners, without it being slow and boring like traditional classes?
Writing
You never stop learning. Even if you want to stabilize and control your life, at one point there will be a lesson for life to teach you.
How I used contextual research, user interviews and user testing to help redesign an old e-commerce website.
An article on the future of design education, highlighting the importance of creativity and student-centered learning
Volunteering
I've been mentoring designers for quite some time but a bit more formally since 2017. Currently, you can find me online at ADPList.