01 Case Study

Strategic Foresight

ZalandoHead of Design2023 – Present

Two months into my tenure, I was appointed to spearhead Zalando's 5-Year Customer Experience Strategy — redefining the company's market position for 2028 and acting as the primary bridge between executive business goals and design strategy.

The Mandate & Challenge

Building a future-proof vision for a system I was still learning

I had to build a future-proof vision for a complex ecosystem while still onboarding into it — and navigate a strict NDA that prevented traditional bottom-up crowdsourcing. The work demanded moving from speculation to a concrete North Star that leadership could rally behind.

Approach

From ambiguity to aligned, operationalized strategy

1

From ambiguous to consensus

Used strategic foresight and market research to build a decision-making framework, forcing SVPs to align on Business Probability vs. Strategic Advantage — landing on three core pillars: high-fidelity inspirational experiences, GenAI integration, and AI opportunities.
2

Accelerating through partnerships

Onboarded two design agencies as strategic agitators, defined the creative guardrails, and managed a €109,200 budget to produce three "Sacrificial Concepts" that moved the Board from hypothetical buy-in to tangible investment.
3

Shaping the strategic narrative

Acted as Creative Director with a motion agency to produce three vision films — crafting a narrative arc that was provocative yet grounded in feasible tech. These became the cornerstone of the 2024 Markets Day press release.
4

Operationalizing the vision

Once the NDA lifted, I led change management — forking the secret strategy into a 20-designer workstream alongside three other Heads of Design, and mentoring teams to preserve the original strategic intent during execution.