Hey, I’m Rachel

I’m leading Zalando’s design innovation lab, The Studio, in Berlin. Our team shapes future strategies at the intersection of tech, fashion, and customer insights.

I’m a design manager and strategist specializing in making the ambiguous clear, the complex simple, and pinpointing the sweet spot between business goals and human needs. My global career has spanned products, industries and countries. I lead with empathy, collaborate with the curious, and build bold.

Most of my work is under NDA. To learn more about past projects, get in touch ↗

Select Works

Goal: Redefining Zalando from a transactional fashion platform to a hub where creativity begins.
Role: Team Lead
Status: Currently ongoing
- Leading design team in crafting innovative new features (currently confidential).
- Strategically enhancing core features, including profile, account, and wishlist.
- Developing new rituals and ways of working to aid collaborative workflows across 9 feature teams.
- Partnering with senior leadership to guide and align strategic decisions.
- Developing a biweekly Gen Z research panel to gain early, actionable feedback.
- Collaborating with new Shenzhen office to integrate Asian social e-commerce insights into Western market strategies.

Goal: Analyzing cultural, technological, and design trends to shape Zalando’s consumer experience vision for the next five years.
Role: Team Lead & Strategist
Impact: Currently informing consumer experience group strategy, public announcement in Capital Markets Day 2024 (Check it out at 2:15:00).
- Conducting holistic UX quality assessments of existing experiences.
- Leading extensive research on global markets, competitors, and emerging technologies for trend forecasting.
- Facilitating internal workshops with product, engineering, R&D, and business development teams to co-create a unified future strategy.
- Brought on and and directed severals agencies in conceptual ideation for future opportunities to bring fresh ideas in.
- Producing a visionary video showcasing future opportunities for Board members, senior leadership, and external communications.

Goal: Driving Klarna’s transition into a Super App that elevates the shopping experience for consumers and business partners.
Role: Team Lead
Impact: Super App designs led to +56% conversion of peak mini-app, +4% DAU search for products, +5% DAU shop online, -24% time to navigate product
- Led the Platform & Navigation team in developing Klarna’s Super App strategy.
- Conducted research and trend analysis on Eastern Super Apps, adapting insights for the European market.
- Developed B2B strategy for mini-app development with partner companies.
- Established design principles, methodology, and guidelines for the mini-app strategy.
- Managed cross-functional product and marketing design teams across Milan, Stockholm, and Toronto.

Goal: Expanding Taxfix into it’s first new markets with localized, human-centered solutions.
Role: IC
Impact:Successful launch of 2 localized markets in >1 year
- Led research and design for the Incubation Product Group during Taxfix’s market expansion.
- Designed strategies for entering France and Italy, adapting the product for localized experiences.
- Developed the organization’s first user research funnel and unified customer personas for product and marketing.

Goal: Shaping AI-driven solutions for safer roads for drivers, fleet managers, insurers and city planners during Nexar’s Series A-B phase.
Role: IC
Impact: Identifying PMF of gig-worker drivers and driving data packages
- As the sole designer during the Series A-B stage, led design and research for Nexar’s live driver mobile app.
- Collaborated with product and business teams to explore future solutions for fleet management, city planning, and car insurance platforms.
- Explored solution concepts to align Nexar’s visionary AI technology with market fit.
- Developing on-site research and prototyping lab, leading on-site research with US partners.

Goal: Exploring big data solutions to design better cities collaboratively with the first company to spin out of the Google X moonshot factory.
Role: IC
- Software solutions for cloud-based collaboration tools across architects, engineers, and contractors.
- Focused on improving onboarding conversion, transitioning users from free to subscription models.
- Developed new strategic web app products to streamline complex workflows.

What I Do

Through strategic collaborations, I help leaders craft visions that de-risk uncertainty and open up new possibilities.

Strategic Visionaire

Collaborating with businesses to map out the next 2–5 years, I transform ambitious visions into tangible outcomes. Developing teams, ways of working, and roadmaps to bring vision work to life incrementally.

Roadmap Architect

I work with my team to uncover their career dreams and help align their goals with business needs, finding the perfect balance to help them thrive.

Career Catalyst

Enhancing design communities by redefining practices for tomorrow, ensuring continuous growth and innovation.

Design Advocate

Mentoring managers is one of my passions—I’ve designed and led 6 month leadership development programs, creating a stronger and more collaborative team.

Leadership Mentor

I cultivate a design team that’s recognized as a leader within the community—mentoring talent, refining hiring practices, and fostering cross-functional collaboration to create broad organizational impact.

Building Teams that Lead