02 Case Study
Operational Scaling
I was appointed Design Lead to establish Zalando's first Asian R&D center — building a localized innovation engine to capture market signals from Chinese e-commerce, under an aggressive timeline and strict data-compliance constraints.
The Challenge
A six-month timeline and a legal data deadlock
I had to build a team, a roadmap, and launch first experiments in six months — while the new Chinese team was legally barred from accessing internal Figma files and user data under strict GDPR and security protocols.
The mission: empower the new hub to drive strategic experiments rather than become an outsource island.
Approach
Building the bridges for local expertise to thrive
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1
Market intelligence
Managed a €650k partnership with IDEO Shanghai as our eyes and ears on the ground, co-designing SVP workshops that translated Asian market signals — Live Commerce, Visual Search — into an EU-relevant roadmap.
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2
A sanitized data bridge
Partnered with Legal and Security to architect a mirrored, GDPR-compliant Figma environment and research protocol — transforming a high-risk data deadlock into a high-velocity innovation engine.
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3
Big bets, de-risked
Ran "From inspo to outfit" with AI-extracted style attributes (a deliberate no-go that harvested style-tagging learnings) and shipped interactive livestreaming from concept to launch in two months.
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4
Localized talent & rituals
Redefined the hiring architecture to bridge EU/CN cultural gaps, retrained 8 interviewers on cultural awareness, and established a cross-functional "Support Squad" ritual to integrate the hub into HQ culture.
Big Bets
Two experiments that defined the hub's playbook
Final Results
A blueprint for how Zalando expands into new territories
2 mo
From concept to a shipped livestreaming beta
58k
Users reached by the livestreaming pilot
2×
Standard watch time on Zalando
16%
Week-over-week retention rate
Learning
With international expansion, build the operational bridges that allow local expertise to thrive within global constraints.