I'm a Head of Design with 15+ years in digital products and 6+ years leading design at that level. One focus: making design measurably matter to the business.
I started out as a hands-on designer: making screens, running user research, sweating the details. That background matters to me. It's why I can tell the difference between a design that's beautiful and a design that works. And why the designers I lead trust me when I push back on their work.
Over time I realised that individual craft only scales so far. The real leverage is in the system: how a design team is structured, how it gets involved in decisions, how it measures its own impact. That's what I've spent the last six years building.
At HSE, one of Germany's largest e-commerce platforms, I've taken design from a 2-person shared-service function to a 9-person embedded practice. Design has gone from being called in after product decisions were made, to being part of how revenue-critical decisions get made in the first place. The numbers follow.
What I believe
- Design impact is not a coincidence. It comes from embedding designers early, defining success before you build, and measuring what changes, not just what shipped.
- Process follows purpose. The right amount of process for any team is the minimum that keeps quality consistent without slowing down decisions.
- Leadership is mostly about clarity. Teams slow down when they don't know what problem they're solving, who owns what, or how they'll know if they succeeded. My job is to remove that fog.
- Good design management is invisible. When design leadership is working, it looks like confident designers making good decisions independently. If I'm always in the room, something is wrong.
- Research earns its place at the table. Not as a ritual, but as a decision input. The question is always: what do we need to know before we ship this, and what's the cheapest way to find out?
Quick facts
Experience
Head of Design (hands-on) · Home Shopping Europe
Munich, Germany · E-commerce · ~€800M annual revenue · Mar 2020 – Present · 6+ years
- Scaled design team from 2 to 9, defining hiring, onboarding, and development plans.
- Set design standards by introducing design critique, visual QA (cutting UI regressions ~25%), and usability testing as standing practices.
- Boosted delivery speed ~15% by building the first enterprise design system with software development.
- Introduced CSAT tracking and sustained ~2pp improvement per year across a consistent 6-year trend.
- Designed (hands-on) the 0→1 social commerce app, "HSE HELLO", approved by C-level, reaching 100M+ viewers across 5,000+ live streams in 4 years.
- Delivered the digital rollout of the 2020 HSE rebranding, directing agency deliverables and redesigning web, iOS, and Android to the new brand guidelines on time, with conversion rates holding stable through the transition.
Senior UX Designer · AutoScout24
Munich, Germany · Automotive marketplace · ~€190M annual revenue · Jun 2018 – Feb 2020 · ~2 years
- Designed the 0→1 concept for a fully online transactional car-buying experience on a classifieds marketplace, from prototype through tested v1, laying the foundation for what later launched as "Smyle".
Senior UX Designer · Trivago
Düsseldorf, Germany · Hotel metasearch · ~€1B annual revenue · Jan 2016 – May 2018 · 2+ years
- Increased registrations ~70% in one quarter by redesigning member account area onboarding, activation, and sign-up flows.
See the full work history on LinkedIn →