ABOUT ME
Who I am beyond the job titles. The countries I've lived in and how they shaped my career.
I’m a systems thinker at the intersection of Design and Product who thrives on the problems others dread: information architecture, data models, permissions, workflows, bulk actions and more. I help your team identify those edge cases that matter, go deep on them and avoid overengineering the rest.
I’m most useful when a B2B founder or team is shaping a new product or business model. I help them decide what not to build, spot the structural calls that will be expensive to unwind, and find a simpler version that doesn’t compound into UX and technical debt.
Barcelona, Sweden and the United States
I grew up in Barcelona and studied audiovisual communication as an undergrad. Right after university, I joined a small innovation studio owned by magicians (literally) that built websites and custom web applications. That’s where I first heard the word “usability.”
I got so interested in UX and information architecture that I went on to study a Master’s in Human-Computer Interaction. I did my Master thesis at Uppsala University, researching work-friendly software. I still blame that experience for my love of ERPs, intranets and data-heavy tools that people use all day, every day, to do their jobs, as opposed to consumer products.
After that, I worked as a UX consultant, UX designer, startup co-founder, freelancer, UX instructor. I spent some time in the USA, near Chicago, and led design for a fully remote startup, when remote was not a thing yet.
Australia: Sydney and Melbourne
In 2014, my partner and I moved to Sydney for what was meant to be a year. We stayed seven so most of my product design career happened down under.
Besides teaching at General Assembly Sydney, I spent three years at a consultancy with strong research and psychology practices, before moving in-house to join a data-visualization startup for investors, then leading the design team building new accounting software for SMEs in Melbourne, and back in Sydney at Veyor, a construction-logistics startup. There I convinced them to hire me as Head of Product Design four days a week, long before anyone called it "fractional."
During this time, I also spoke and ran workshops at international conferences like UX Australia, UX Thailand, UX New Zealand and Design Leadership. In 2018 I was named a Google Developer Expert in Interaction Design and became a Google-certified Design Sprint Master and one of the organizers of the Design Sprinters meetup.
On the personal front, we had twins at the beginning of the Covid pandemic and couldn't travel to Spain to introduce them to their families for almost two years. So in 2022 the 4 of us moved back to Barcelona to be closer to our families.
Back in Barcelona
I joined Typeform as Senior Design Manager, then spent three years at Personio, where I grew into Director of Product Design, and moved to Productboard to lead their entire product design function. So, for the last four years, I led remote or distributed teams, with colleagues and direct reports across Germany, Spain, the UK, Netherlands and the US.
In 2026, I made the decision to bet on myself and do what I'd been circling for years: start a fractional practice for startups, closer to the product, on my own terms.
“Elena is able to go deep in the weeds and think at a high level, which means she's able to contribute so much to the team and, ultimately, to the customers.”
“We released to market on time with a lot of positive feedback around experience. I'd highly recommend Elena for any design leadership role.”
“Elena continuously seeks to improve the process, deliverables, and ways of working as a team. Given her positive attitude and inspirational leadership, she is a great person to work with and look up to.”
“Elena's ability to challenge both the team and her peers has helped shape EO into a culture where constructive feedback and challenges are welcomed.”
“Elena is very good at switching between an IC role and a management role. It was great to see how she raised the standards of design and our aspirations towards UX.”
“Her ability to take several steps back, question our roadmap and priorities, and suggest alternatives has proven invaluable.”
“Her pushes to think differently about a topic have often helped us deliver much better experiences to customers significantly sooner.”
“Elena is an absolutely superb manager and designer. I've personally benefited hugely from her mentorship and guidance.”
“I worked with Elena for almost two years, and I can say she's one of the best managers I ever had... continually encouraging me to go beyond my limits.”
let's talk
I'm curious about what you're building, who it's for, and what's getting in the way.
