Leadership Highlights

I've coached designers into their next promotion, and sat with others who were quietly burning out. I've reignited people who'd been in the same seat for years and needed a reason to care again, and helped others leave a role gracefully instead of letting frustration turn into attrition, and led teams through reorgs where the ground kept shifting under everyone. Along the way I've managed designers across hubs in Canada, Italy, Sweden, Germany, and China, each bringing a different relationship to hierarchy, feedback, and ambition.

I've learned no two designers are alike, and management isn't a formula. My job is finding where what a designer wants from their career and craft overlaps with what the org needs from their talent, and adjusting that balance as both sides change. Nurturing a designer's growth and seeing the impact come alive in the org is my favourite way to see my impact scale.

Design Managers at Zalando often felt isolated: stunted growth, no real support network, nowhere to admit they were struggling. I built a curriculum and ritual around that gap, a safe space focused specifically on how to develop as a design manager, not just a designer. Sharing what actually works, comparing notes on ways of working, having a sparring partner on the hard days, treating management as a craft worth practicing deliberately. The curriculum covers bar-raising teams, management career paths, managing up, leading when nobody on your team fits the "normal" mold, motivating a checked-out report, and difficult conversations about performance.

16 design managers have been through it, and the response has been strong. Leaders can't just nurture their teams. We have to nurture our own growth too, or we run out of what we're giving away.