1:1 COACHING FOR DESIGN MANAGERS
Design leadership isn't a title change. It's a different job.
Some designers who want to move into management lose years because they don't know how to get ready. Others get promoted even and are left to figure it out alone. Neither has to be your story.
- Manager + Leader
- I've been managing and mentoring designers for 7+ years as part of my job and outside.
- Multiplier approach
- I take pride in seeing how far people can go with the right support.
- Design-specific
- Managing designers isn't like managing people in general. I coach to that, not to a generic playbook.
- Practical
- Tools, templates and frameworks help. But nothing beats having someone who's been there before, a call away.
Why me
I had amazing coaches and mentors and it made all the difference for me
Read more about my leadership approach →
How it works
We map where you actually are
Not a generic leadership curriculum. We start with your specific gap: a team you've just inherited, a promotion you're building the case for, a first hard conversation you're dreading.
We work through real, live situations
Your actual 1:1s, hiring decisions, stakeholder pushback. You bring the situation, we build the response together.
You leave with your own playbook
I measure success by how little you need me by the end. And how much you trust the leader you've become in the process.
What's included
Flexible, based on what you need or what's most pressing
- 01The basics for 1:1s, career frameworks and performance cycles
- 02Hiring, onboarding, promotions and terminations
- 03Hard conversations, critical feedback and radical candor
- 04Real-time support for live situations as they emerge
Leadership can often feel lonely and it's useful to have sounding board who isn't your manager or your reports.
The logistics
Weekly 50 mins session
Consistent rhythm to build momentum and trust.
Min 3 months
After that, adjust frequency or cancel anytime.
Billed monthly
Many companies cover this as part of a designer's growth budget instead of a conference ticket or courses. Download PDF for your manager or whoever approves the budget.
“She's able to go deep in the weeds AND think at a high level — which means she's able to bring so much to the team.”
“She managed to work both wide and deep. The project required a lot of mental capacity, and critical, out-of-the-box thinking. Elena delivered both.”
“Elena's most impactful strength is her ability to take several steps back, look at a problem in a new light, structure it, and come up with entirely new solutions.”
“Elena's pushes for us to think differently about a topic have often helped us deliver much better experiences significantly sooner.”
“Elena sets a high bar for the user experience and deeply cares about the needs of customers. She finds the right pragmatic balance between aiming for a stellar experience and ensuring a steady pace of improvements.”
“Elena demonstrated a unique ability to synthesise complex requirements from multiple areas into holistic, technically feasible solutions that met the needs of customers across different segments.”
“Elena is an absolutely superb manager and designer. She has a fantastic way of pushing for the best possible solution for users, challenging us to rethink accepted patterns to ensure we're delivering the best experience in the most efficient ways.”
“Her insights into what projects are running across the organisation, and her ability to connect dots between roadmaps of various teams, allowed us to identify potential bottlenecks and misalignments before they became problems.”
“Elena found the right altitude enabling her team to execute while providing enough support to resolve blockers and unexpected discoveries in a timely manner.”
“Her deep understanding of the team, the space we work in, and what's happening across the organisation has helped us push forward and deliver value, even when things felt pretty hard.”
LET'S TALK
Not sure if I can help?
Book a free 30 min session
Just bring your most pressing challenge and let's work through it.
