Olga portrait 1500.png — Hello, I’m Olga

Strategic design leader and innovator with 20+ years of experience.
I help companies design the future through strategy, research, service design, and product design. I work with global companies and public sector organisations, to create sustainable, ethical, and resilient solutions by combining human-centred design and systems thinking.
I lead cross-disciplinary teams to execute strategies and transform visions into reality, collaborating with diverse ecosystems of partners. I believe in the power of design to address complex challenges, bringing empathy, creativity, and collaboration to business transformation. I am passionate about proving the value of design and making its impact as tangible and measurable as possible.
With over 5 years of working with AI and advanced technologies, I assist companies in integrating GenAI throughout the research and design process, accelerating innovation and delivering breakthrough solutions.

I have always been a designer, the flavours of design I do have evolved over time.

Industries I worked in

Clients include:

NEOM, Unilever, BP, Shell, NTT Data, Sky, Vodafone, Virgin Media, Citrix, Just Eat, Waitrose, Marks & Spenser, Tesco ClubCard, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays Capital, HSBC, VISA, NHS Digital, GSK, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Department of Health, Tate Modern, Smithsonian American Art Museum, University College of London.

What I do

Experience Strategy, Framework Development, Future Visions and Roadmaps, Business Design.
Leading cross-disciplinary design and delivery teams.
Design Research, Concept & Proposition Development.
Service Design, Prototyping and Testing, Executing Strategy.
System design — solving complex problems through ecosystems of partners.
Data design, designing for AI and related Advanced Technologies.
Integrating GenAI in every step of the Research and Design process.
Product Design, UX design.
Workshop preparation and facilitation — from team alignment sessions to multi-day strategic global hybrid workshops

Curriculum Vitae

Download my CV

Dates

Company, Role

Key areas of responsibility

December 2023 — March 2024

BP
Strategic Service Design

I worked for the Innovation Lab in the Trading and Shipping area of bp. I helped the team define high value opportunities to use GenAI for BP Trading and Shipping and experience design of the GenAI product MVP. My work included research, strategic service design, conversational design, user testing, working closely with the product team.

April 2022 — December 2023

Publicis Sapient
Strategic Service Design Director

At PS I have been responsible for developing service design capability and leading service design on key client accounts.
My main account has been NEOM Tourism Sector, where we helped to define Digital Strategy. NEOM is a new city-state that is being built from scratch in the desert region of Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea.
Our team designed visitor experience of Sindalah island — the first region of NEOM to go live. We created an experience vision and a modular and nested framework to document how each element of the experience will work and capabilities and enablers that need to be developed to implement it. My team developed operational model for the region. Our work was used by NEOM teams and external partners delivering visitor experience, including product, content, marketing, operations, legal, technology & data, enterprise architecture.
I delivered service design training for multiple disciplines within PS and consulted teams working on projects including elements of service design, helping to plan, sell and execute.

January 2021 —
April 2022

BP
Strategic Service Design Director

At BP I played 3 roles.

— Improving Procurement at bp
Hiring and managing a team of researchers, product and service designers. Identifying opportunities and working with key business areas to plan future state and deliver digital solutions.

— Leading strategic service design at bp design studio
Engaging with stakeholders from all business areas to support their design requests. I was the first point of contact for clients to understand their needs. I helped them frame challenges and opportunities, propose approaches, and shape teams to deliver them. I planned and managed complex programmes of work, leading multi-disciplinary teams.
— Co-creating future visions and road maps for business areas of BP with BP Innovation team
I worked in collaboration with VPs of Innovation and their teams to co-create visions for 3 areas:
1) the future of work in extreme environments over the next 10 years
2) the future of offshore wind energy as part of a sustainable energy ecosystem over the next 15 years
3) the future of mobility and defining a role bp can play in creating an infrastructure to support that future
We developed an effective approach, bringing together a wide range of experts in relevant fields. It uses a wide range of methodologies, including system product, service, data, and business design.

I was leading the BP service design community.

May 2021 —
October 2021

United Nations Development Fund
Design and Research Mentor

Mentoring product teams of companies supported by United Nations Development Fund on research, product and business strategy, facilitating workshops and applying human centred design.

December 2019 — November 2020

NTT Data &
Itelligence
Experience Director

At NTT Data I played 3 roles.

— Leading Research for an international research programme
I led a team in the UK, working with researchers in Italy, Spain, and Germany. Our goal was to improve the mental well-being and independence of people over 65 using technology and social innovation.

— Setting up Service Design practice at Tangity, the design agency of NTT Data. I developed a proposal for delivering cutting-edge treatments to patients. I suggested a way to connect hospitals with research organisations, and pharmaceutical companies, enabled by AI, ML, and IoT.

— Product vision for AI Learning Helper an Artificial Intelligence product helping children learn to read. Research, planning, and directing the video production. System design proposal showing possible business models and partnership opportunities.
See case study
See Medium article

August 2018 — September 2019

Shell
Strategic Design Lead
Product Owner
Content curator

At Shell I worked on 2 programmes:

— Advanced Analytics programme of work: laying foundations for a data-driven culture at Global Commercial part of Shell, improving end-to-end sales process by providing actionable data insights

— Development of Product Delivery Methodology for Shell.
I led a team creating a unified approach to solving business problems at a global scale using design thinking, service design, data science and lean innovation.
See case study

March 2018 —
July 2018

Just Eat
(contract with Beyond)
Service Design Manager

Improving Just Eat service experience from customer, restaurant partner, delivery driver and customer operations perspectives. I lead a team doing user-centred and business research to identify and prioritise opportunities for improvement.
See case study

December 2017 — March 2018

NHS Digital
(contract with Kainos)
Service Design Lead

Improving social care for old people: I led service design research for identifying opportunities to improve the process of arranging, funding and receiving social care. Our team made recommendations for improving processes and digital solutions to provide better support and guidance for old people and carers.
See case study

September 2017 — November 2017

ICIS
(contract with Tobias & Tobias)
Principal Service Designer

Improving customer experience of accessing petrochemical & energy market intelligence of the world's largest provider.
I was responsible for product and service strategy, user research and UX prototyping.

March 2017 — August 2017

EY
Bettson
GlaxoSmithKline
Moorfield Eye Hospital
(contract with EY-Seren)
Service Design Lead
Researcher
UX Lead

At EY-Seren I worked on 5 projects:

— Retirement Manager app, helping retired people be in control of their finances: new service proposition, UX design and mobile app prototyping (EY)

— Digital Passport for small to medium enterprises: defining personas and service proposition (EY)

— Buying Goods & Services across GSK
I led user research & service design to improve procurement experience of GSK employees

— Understanding behavioural patterns of sports gamblers: a diary study and in-depth interviews (Bettson)

— Vision for future experience of patients and medical professionals at the new building of the largest eye hospital in the UK (Moorfield Eye Hospital)

December 2016 — February 2017

Schlumberger
(contract with RMA)
Service Design Lead

Improving experience of oil engineers using Schlumberger software
Shlumberger provides a very sophisticated specialist software for oil reservoir engineers to identify, model and evaluate the potential of oil reservoirs.
I did user research and service design to identify and prioritise recommendations for improvement.

September 2016 — December 2016

Commerzbank
(contract with Fathom)
Service Design / UX Lead

Onboarding to Client Portal
I led research and user experience design work to optimise the onboarding process & digital experience

April 2016 — July 2016

Lloyds Banking Group
(contract with Sapient)
Creative Director

Appointment booking and Authentication across all banks of the Lloyds Banking Group. I led a design pod, planning and executing user research, tech innovation research, service design and user testing.
See case study

September 2015 — March 2016

Crowdmix
Service Design / UX Lead

Social music app, connecting artists with fans and sponsor brands:
I worked with the founders to help define a new service proposition around the product idea, introduced service design thinking in a product-led organisation.
I defined the ecosystem of partners, value exchange and detailed artist, agent and fan experiences.
See case study

November 2013 — November 2014

Citrix
Lead Product Designer

XenMobile — a platform for controlling mobile devices of large corporations: UX and prototyping for the console; improving workflows and collaboration of internal teams supporting the service
See case study

February 2013 — July 2013

Sky
UX lead

Products and Shop areas of sky.com (TV, Broadband and Mobile sections): managed UX team, optimising the shopping experience

November 2011 — December 2012

Vodafone Global
UX Lead

Browse and Select, Basket and Checkout sections of www.vodafone.co.uk: managed UX team optimising shopping experience
Defined UX best practices for Vodafone

February 2007 — October 2010

Artstream
Founding Director
Product Manager

Cross-platform social application for museums and art fairs, clients include: Tate Modern, Smithsonian Art Museum, Kinetica Art Fair, Future of Sound

June 2010 — October 2010

HSBC
Marks & Spenser
MINI
(Contract with Profero)

UX lead

At Profero I worked on 3 projects:

— HSBC Mortgage information:
UX Design to improve experience of finding the right mortgage

— M&S Christmas campaign
UX design for digital experience

— Olympic marketing campaign — The Great British Roar
UX design for digital experience

January 2010 — May 2010

Virgin Media
(contract with EMC)
UX Lead

TV, Broadband and Mobile packages selection, Checkout: optimising shopping experience

September 2009— October 2009

Department of Health
(Contract with Sapient)
UX Lead

Midlife Check: an online tool for educating people about healthy lifestyle
UX research and design.

June 2009 —
July 2009

Fidelity Investments
House of Fraser
(Contract with Tobias & Tobias)
UX Lead

At Tobias & Tobias I worked on 2 projects:

— Financial Planning application for Fidelity investments

— User Experience strategy pitch for House of Fraser

November 2008

RosGosStrakh
(Contract for Conchango)
UX Lead

User Experience strategy pitch for the 3rd largest company in Russia

September 2008 — October 2008

Barclays Capital
(Contract with Tobias & Tobias)
UX Lead

BARX — trading applications portal for investment banking
User research and UX design.

August 2008

Visa
Waitrose
Dunnhumby
First Direct
Exchange & Mart
Tesco  
Terra Actualidad
Russell Reynolds Associates
HiFX  
(contract for Conchango)
UX consultant

At Conchango I worked on 9 projects:

— Real-time payment system for Visa (Aug 2008)

— Product Information Catalogue for Waitrose (Jul - Aug 2008)

— Business Intelligence application for Tesco Loyalty card
I designed the first visual application for customer intelligence data of Tesco supermarket chain (Ranger) (based on the Excel sheets that were used before) (Jun-Jul 2008)

— Mortgage selection for First Direct
UX design for optimising mortgage selection and application (May-Jun 2008)

— Buying used and new cars online for Exchange & Mart (May 2008)

— Tesco Digital Entertainment, Music and TV (Feb-May 2008)

— New concept for the News section of Terra website (Feb 2008)

— Beacon Recruiter, a desktop application for Russell Reynolds, a global executive recruitment agency with offices in over 50 countries (Aug-Dec 2007)

— ePayments application for HiFX: international currency transfers online
User research and design (Apr-Nov 2007)

January 2004 — June 2005

University College London
& Great Ormond Street Hospital
Graphic & Web Designer

— Designing posters for medical research, web sites and animations

before…

Publishing houses in Moscow
Book & magazine designer
Illustrator

Book design, magazine design, illustration from traditional ink drawing, engraving and linocuts to typography, calligraphy and computer graphics

Education

Moscow State University of Print

MA in Graphic Design

University of the Arts London

MA in Interactive Media (UX)

London Business School

New Creative Ventures

Short courses

IDEO U

Designing Strategy

IDEO U

Human-Centred Systems Design

IDEO U

Communicating for Impact

Central Saint Martins

Entrepreneurship for Creatives

Central Saint Martins

Mixed Media Fine Art

Central Saint Martins

Interior Design

ToastMasters International

Public Speaking: Competent Communicator