Fractional
design partner
for B2B products
Most founders know their product has design problems. Few have someone who knows how to fix them or how to use AI to make better design decisions. When your product complexity has outpaced your design setup, I embed with your team, part-time, and change how your product is designed and built. AI sharpens and accelerate complex design work. It doesn't replace judgment or navigate ambiguity.
WHO I AM
A design leader who has actually shipped the work
A dashboard for a CFO isn’t a UI exercise. Access rights are not just screens with checkboxes. After 15+ years designing for B2B complex domains, I now help teams navigate their hardest design problems.
Visit my LinkedIn profile for more details→- Founder + Designer
- Start-up founder, first designer, design leader — across finance, HR and logistics in Europe, the US and Australia. I know what it takes to ship under real constraints. That experience is in the room from day 1.
- Multiplier approach
- I measure success by how little the team needs me by the end. Not because I've disengaged — because I've transferred judgment, not just direction. The goal was never dependency. It was capability.
- HCI Background
- Master's in Human-Computer Interaction, with research in work-friendly software — how to design products that don't increase the stress of the users. IA and Usability lecturer. Google-certified Design Sprint Master.
- Human-first leader
- The best design work comes from teams who feel safe enough to challenge, fail, and learn. That requires direct feedback and real ownership — not a leader who confuses harmony with health.
How I think about quality
I care about what ships, not just what's designed. Simple solutions are the hardest to get to and almost always worth the extra thinking.
How I make decisions
I think in options and trade-offs, not yes or no. I ask why a lot, and focus on the hard problems before the easy wins.
How I partner and collaborate
You bring the domain reality. I challenge assumptions and bring an outside perspective. Direct feedback, both ways. That's what makes the work better and the team stronger.
HOW I LEAD
Good design leadership isn't about having all the answers
It's about asking better questions, building the right conditions for good work to happen, and knowing when to stop deliberating and start shipping.
Read more about my leadership approach →WORKING WITH ME
Three ways
we can work
together
Different engagements based on what you need: direction, execution or capability. Because complex B2B product teams need different things at different moments.
Read more about working with me →- 01/
Interim or Fractional
1–3 days/week · 3-month minimum
Head of DesignI lead the design function — vision, processes, tools, people, stakeholders — until you're ready to hire a full-time design leader.
→ - 02/
High-Impact
Part-time · 6–12 weeks
Individual ContributorIf you have a critical project, I can do the hardest design work while I mentor designers working on it.
→ - 03/
1:1 Coaching sessions
Weekly or bi-weekly 1-hour sessions
For founders, leaders and their teamsI work with founders making key design decisions, design leaders building their influence and teams that need a sounding board.
→
“She managed to work both wide and deep. The project required a lot of mental capacity, and critical, out-of-the-box thinking. Elena delivered both.”
“Elena's most impactful strength is her ability to take several steps back, look at a problem in a new light, structure it, and come up with entirely new solutions.”
“Elena's pushes for us to think differently about a topic have often helped us deliver much better experiences significantly sooner.”
“Elena sets a high bar for the user experience and deeply cares about the needs of customers. She finds the right pragmatic balance between aiming for a stellar experience and ensuring a steady pace of improvements.”
“Elena demonstrated a unique ability to synthesise complex requirements from multiple areas into holistic, technically feasible solutions that met the needs of customers across different segments.”
“Elena is an absolutely superb manager and designer. She has a fantastic way of pushing for the best possible solution for users, challenging us to rethink accepted patterns to ensure we're delivering the best experience in the most efficient ways.”
“Her insights into what projects are running across the organisation, and her ability to connect dots between roadmaps of various teams, allowed us to identify potential bottlenecks and misalignments before they became problems.”
“Elena found the right altitude enabling her team to execute while providing enough support to resolve blockers and unexpected discoveries in a timely manner.”
“Her deep understanding of the team, the space we work in, and what's happening across the organisation has helped us push forward and deliver value, even when things felt pretty hard.”
“Her feedback is clear, actionable, and tailored — highlighting areas where I excel and those where I can improve. What stands out is the variety of improvement strategies she suggests.”
“Elena goes beyond feedback by taking the time to understand what I'm interested in and what I want to develop — and organises projects in a way that aligns with the areas we want to grow in.”
“Elena exhibited exceptional initiative — going beyond standard feedback to develop a comprehensive understanding of the model and cross-product needs, and creating supporting artefacts to facilitate productive discussions about complex technical challenges.”
“She's able to go deep in the weeds AND think at a high level — which means she's able to contribute so much to the team and, ultimately, to the customers.”
LET'S TALK
Tell me where design hurts,
I'll tell you if I'm the right fit
I'm selective about who I work with. So are good founders.
