Design Lead, Strategist, Coach
Current position
Currently working at Contentful where I lead design and research efforts, help to define what comes next, look after system health and end-to-end customer experience, and coach teams and individuals.
Why hire me?
Examples of my work
01
Helped a company to successfully navigate a new market
Established the design team, processes, and practices. Grew design and research capabilities. Contributed to company’s strategy with research and strategic design. Helped to shape the product and service offerings. In 5 years time yearly revenue grew 40 times.
02
Helped a startup to become a market leader
Helped a startup to redefine their vision, business model, and product and service offerings which led to a 900% increase in active users, 200% increase in the number of partners. It ultimately made them a market leader in their segment.
03
Helped a company to adapt their product offerings and increase sales
While working in the financial sector, led the redesign of one of the two company’s major products, and defined and executed a new product offering. Both initiatives led to an increase of revenue by $4M.
What do I mean by
Leadership and Strategy?
01
As a design lead, I help people develop and grow, both in their roles and their careers. I have 8 years of experience in leading and managing designers, researchers, and copywriters, of all seniorities.
02
Strategic design is a team effort where success depends on the ability to work with diverse functions and multiple stakeholders. My role is to involve, align and coordinate people with different visions towards reaching the same goal.
03
In the 21st-century world, traditional methods and thinking are not enough to solve complex problems. With Speculative Design and Foresight methods I help companies to explore alternative futures, navigate an increasing complexity and uncertainty, and make wise decisions about their future.
04
I use my experience in Strategy, Service design and Experience design to understand how technology, business, and people interact within the larger ecosystem and design new products, services, processes, and systems.
05
As complexity of the world increases, optimizing the system rather than isolated parts becomes an imperative. I consider many moving parts and their relationships, and try to understand where and how to make interventions that will influence positive outcomes.
Something personal
Biography
I am a seasoned Design Lead and Strategic Designer with more than two decades of experience across a broad range of fields. I bring together research, service design, speculative design, strategy, systems thinking, and my management and coaching experience to help organizations navigate uncertainty and design for the decades that are yet to come.
Since 2014, I am working at Contentful as a Design Lead and Senior Strategic Designer, where I built the design design team and design capabilities inside the organization. Today I lead strategic design efforts, help to define what comes next, look after system health and end-to-end customer experience, and coach and mentor teams and individuals. Prior to joining Contentful and moving to Berlin, I co-owned a service design consultancy in Belgrade. We helped startups to define their product and service offerings, delivered a range of projects for big organizations, and trained digital agencies in experience design.
As a design lead, I help people develop and grow, both in their roles and their careers. I have 8 years of experience in leading and managing designers, researchers, and copywriters, of all seniorities.
As a designer, I consider myself to be a design pluralist and I feel comfortable working across boundaries of any kind. I’m exploring the crossroads of multiple disciplines, such as service and experience design, speculative design, system thinking, strategic foresight, ethics, and design theory. All this effectively makes me a generalist, but I do specialize in something – being comfortable with the unknown and being able to navigate uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Writing
I had an amazing opportunity to contribute to Smashing Book 2 with the chapter on Sketching, Wireframing, and Prototyping. I've also written a few articles on Smashing Magazine and my own blog.
Interviews
It was an honor to appear in Svet Kompjutera (No.12/2012), a leading IT magazine in Serbia, in an interview about user experience design practice. I am also thankful for the opportunity to share designerly thoughts on Interface Lovers in July 2018.
Life outside work
Parenting x3, occasionally writing, co-authored a book, giving talks, designed a typeface, painting and sculpturing, playing guitar and drums.
Selected talks
Contentful, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, Berlin •
MaterialUP, 2016, Berlin • UX Belgrade, 2016, Belgrade (Slides) •
StartIt Fest, 2014, Belgrade •
Startup Academy, 2012, 2013, 2014, Belgrade •
Live Local - Work Global: Keynote, 2013, Vrsac •
DaFED, 2013, Novi Sad (Slides) •
RenderConf, 2013, Novi Sad •
FFWD PRO, Zagreb, Croatia (Slides) •
START Conference, 2012, Belgrade •
Microsoft Community Camp, 2012, Kragujevac •
StartIt: Rapid prototyping workshop, 2012, Belgrade •
Feed the Brain, 2012, Venice, Italy •
Mobile Monday, 2012, Belgrade •
Microsoft Sinergija, 2011, Belgrade •
Microsoft Code Camp, 2009, Belgrade •
Microsoft MSDN Day, 2008, Belgrade •
Microsoft WebFu, 2007, 2010 2011, Belgrade
