My team strives to design inclusive, trustworthy and playful size & fit experiences integrated throughout the shopping journey. We make body scanning technologies, advice algorithms and 3D visualizations meaningful to customers. We work toward a future where size-related return reductions save CO2 and technology enables made-to-fit fashion.

My team hired, grew and inspired the digital product design Community of Practice across all of Zalando. Our customers were the diverse array of designers, writers and user researchers working in B2C, B2B and Enterprise (B2E). Our collaborators were their design managers. (We empowered and enabled by working with — not for — the digital experience design and UX research teams.)We staffed projects with UX, UI and service design capabilities and supported stretch assignments or team rotation. We provided professional development frameworks, oversaw performance management and fostered a creative culture aligned to Zalando’s Founding Mindset. We facilitated employer branding efforts and coordinated design hiring in close partnership with our Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence for Design.

Expanded my remit to manage all of the UX and UI designers embedded in the multidisciplinary teams delivering the core Zalando digital experience.

Led design in the areas of Information, Intent, Search, Personalization, Sizing, and Customization. Explored opportunities with the team to leverage machine learning to scale the customer experience and create more dynamic and personal interactions. Nurtured a remote working culture across teams in Helsinki, Dublin and Berlin. Grew new leaders — both managers and principals.

• Grew Product Design talent dramatically at scale across the full range of business units within a fast-growing organization. • Managed central hiring of digital product designers and user researchers from the business side.• Defined standards for the Product Design job family to ensure equitable compensation and fair leveling and promotions.• Developed and spread professional development tools and methods for researchers and designers. • Evolved the design practice, facilitating sharing and encouraging networking of this professional tribe across teams and business units.

I brought together UX and UI Designers across various product groups into a new team in order to increase communication, consistency and a sense of belonging to a professional "tribe". I hired new designers into a fast-growing organization (across multiple business units) with good momentum and high quality standards.

While building up user research and product design within the organization in pursuit of ever higher levels of customer centricity, I also temporarily led our team of UX Researchers.

As a consultant I interfaced with technology companies to design ways of working to optimize usability, invite emotional engagement and maximize customer satisfaction. I designed interaction frameworks and information architectures to ensure consistent cross-platform user experiences. I hired and managed User Experience teams on a start-up or interim basis. In companies without dedicated UX teams, I provided external supervision to designers and researchers.

Headed up Major UX services, which evaluated the usability and desirability of cloud software for businesses. With a unique service portfolio combining product, marketing and UX know-how, we advised large companies who were deciding which software solutions to adopt, acquire or partner with. In addition to these user experience due diligence services, we also advised SaaS software publishers with expert reviews, usability studies, and formative user research. We assisted traditional software companies in the transition to web-based a.k.a. cloud computing experiences.

Defined a step-by-step strategy for bringing more fluid editing interactions into a website builder application. Introduced RITE testing as a means of increasing stakeholder involvement and quickly engineering the best possible design solution.

Redesigned a powerful, data-driven SEA campaign builder to optimize usability and help SEM account managers create highly successful Google ad campaigns. Staffed the company with their own user experience designer and provided ongoing external supervision.

I conducted product definition workshops with a medical software company, designed the interaction framework and led ongoing UI design. We defined a style guide as a common design language for multiple web-based applications. For the various interfaces, we delivered wireframes and clickable Axure prototypes.

I led the user experience design of an in-software app catalog as well as UIs for various apps to extend the functionality of an existing product. Pushing a mature UX organization even further, I introduced (a) bi-weekly iterative user testing to validate and inspire the design and (b) video click-dummy walkthroughs as living documentation.

Designed a UI framework, toolkit and style guide to enable developer partners to deliver industry-specific SaaS solutions for small business. Built a User Experience design team from the ground up.

Designed the user interface for a portal encompassing various 1&1 software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings. Coordinated the work of 4 additional conceptual designers and delivered user interface requirements to multiple teams in a scrum-based development environment.

Founded and directed the 5-person User Experience team. Supervised weekly internal and occasional external usability research across multiple brands, media channels and countries. Taught user experience principles to product teams and evangelized customer focus company-wide. Led an additional 4-person product concept team parallel to managing the centralized usability and screen design team. Designed information structures, navigation schemes and user interfaces.

Built a social network into the existing Jamba.de website. Delivered on Web 2.0 promises by infusing community features and user-generated content into a traditional web shop. Designed dynamic AJAX interface elements. Documented business requirements, defined use cases, diagrammed work flows, laid out wireframes, designed user interfaces and wrote functional specifications. Coordinated usability testing and served as user advocate.

Designed features for the most active online dating community in Germany. Developed concept for internationalization and managed rollout of the application into 13 countries and 12 languages. Optimized order flows. Documented business requirements, defined use cases, diagrammed work flows, laid out wireframes, designed user interfaces and wrote functional specifications.

Developed website and web app concepts and designs for various clients, including Taskit Embedded Systems, The Casey Family Program, King County, Intel, Giro and Novell.

Designed unifying UI and cohesive navigation system for previously disparate web-based applications. Conducted contextual inquiry user studies. Re-designed workflow of existing features. Defined UI standards and specifications.

Coordinated UI design across DeepCanyon.com, a marketing portal which sold electronic (XML) market research documents. Established and documented interface standards. Designed user interfaces for new features and re-designed existing features including extensive search improvements. Diagrammed site architecture and user flows. Created UI mockups for usability testing.

Designed the user interface and coded HTML templates for a web-based application serving freight forwarders.

Managed budgets, payroll and resources for a multimedia research lab. Designed website.

Designed display ads and laid out editorial spreads.