in product
design
Work
I'm a design leader with nearly twenty years of experience in digital products, specialising in e-commerce and multi-sided marketplaces, including partner and internal tooling. Most recently, as Head of Product Design at Catawiki, I led a team of 15 across UX and content design, set creative direction and worked directly with executives, engineering and data. I have hands-on experience shipping AI-powered products.
The four projects here span 2021 to 2025: a multi-year overhaul of how sellers list their objects, a strategic redesign of the core buying experience, Catawiki's first production AI product, and an organisational framework for design growth. Together they reflect how I think about design leadership: creating conditions for good decisions, across teams, across time, and at the intersection of design, product, and business strategy.
The thrill of the auction
Recommitting to the auction: a mobile-first redesign of the object detail page built around urgency, social proof and repeat bidding.
Frontline AI customer support
Catawiki's first production AI product: an assistant as first point of contact for buyers and sellers, answering 44% of questions without needing a human agent.
Object-based submission
A three-year overhaul of seller submission, from choosing an auction first to describing the object first, serving around 200,000 sellers.
UX competencies framework
A five-competency, five-level framework for product, content and design systems designers, used in hiring, performance reviews and promotions.
To read more about my experience, you can have a look at my CV below. View my CV
About me
I started in computer science, and it still shapes how I work: structured problem solving and systems thinking. Across Booking.com, GameHouse, TravelBird, Tiqets and Catawiki I've worked on mobile, web and marketplace products. Over the past decade my leadership has focused on strengthening design culture, introducing design foundations and competency frameworks, and hiring and mentoring designers as teams grew.
Outside work, I'm a mum of two and the human of a very opinionated cat, a coffee enthusiast and a regular at CrossFit. I love making things by hand: I sew now and then, from clothes to bags, and I enjoy knitting and crocheting, from amigurumi to scarves and even sweaters. I read and watch sci-fi and historical fiction.
The world is such a big, diverse place, and I love exploring it. Architecture, history and culture shape where I go, and food is a big part of the choice. I always want to try something new, though picky eaters as travel companions can sometimes make that a challenge.
Referrals
I've had the pleasure of working closely with Simona at Catawiki, and she is one of those leaders who consistently raises the level of both people and outcomes. As Head of Design, she combines sharp strategic thinking with a genuine care for customers and teams.
Simona is deeply involved in some of Catawiki's most important initiatives, including complex domains such as logistics, where she brings clarity to ambiguity and ensures design plays a meaningful role in solving real business and customer problems. She is a strong partner across product, engineering, and operations, and is trusted in critical decision-making moments.
She is also an outstanding hiring manager. Simona has built a strong design organization by setting a high bar, creating a thoughtful hiring process, and creating an environment where designers can grow, take ownership, and do their best work. The quality and good vibes of the team are a direct reflection of her leadership.
Working with Simona has made my own job better and impactful, and Catawiki is significantly better because of her presence.
Simona is a star designer in the very best ways; she is conscientious, empathetic, structured, data-driven, knowledgable, and flexible. Her taste is always both astute and in tune with the company's vision. When Simona and I disagreed, we were always able to understand the reason for the difference of views, and come to a conclusion that improved business outcomes. Her work has longevity and continues to improve the Tiqets user experience and business long after implementation. I really hope to work with Simona again, and would fully recommend her for any type of team from large to small.
When starting at Tiqets I joined a great team where Simona was the designer. We had the opportunity to define together a roadmap and build cutting-edge features for our suppliers. Simona was essential in our success. Her method and critical thinking helped us to create simple and beautiful interface. And not to mention she is fun to work with!
Simona is a great UX designer and very fun to work with. I had the chance to work with her at Tiqets during a transformative time for the company, and it was a pleasure to collaborate on challenging design projects with her. She is a very capable and hands-on designer that knows how to deal with any challenge that comes her way and efficiently collaborate with stakeholders in the company. Last but not least, she is definitely a person you want to have in your team, great communicator, always fun to be around, and with a great sense of humor!
I've had the pleasure of working with Simona for almost 2 years at TravelBird. I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with her as well as managing her. Simona achieved a lot in her time at the company, both developing a completely new extranet solution for our partners, as well as being instrumental in developing a completely new check-out experience for our customers.
Simona really takes ownership of a challenge, involving people of all disciplines in the process, and using her strong communication skills to guide the team to the right solutions. She uses her interaction design skills, and her technical knowledge to create design that are both very usable, and very feasible.
She's a strong team player and her personality is an asset to any team.
I've been working with Simona at TravelBird for almost 2 years. Her work as a Senior Product Designer was essential in the improvement and growth of the product. Her designs saved considerable amount of time and money for the company. Projects led by her made it easier and faster for partners to work with us. Creating an entirely new check-out experience for customers improved conversion rate significantly.
Her experience in UX design makes her confident in taking ownership of a project and leading the team. She is convincible with good arguments, she always makes sure her ideas and opinion are backed up by metrics and data. Her feedback was always thorough and clever, her excellent communications skills made her a valuable asset to the team.
All in all she is a great person to work with, I enjoyed collaborating with her and would definitely like to work together again.
Simona is an outstanding Product Designer. She can put together both quantitative and qualitative data to make great experiences that users love. Simona is pragmatic and a hard worker who is not afraid of taking decisions to make the product evolve.
Besides all that, she is fun to work with and an excellent person. I would work again with her without a doubt.
I had the pleasure to work with Simona in the user-profile team of Booking.com. Simona will not avoid tackling usability challenges, understands the user and always comes up with a data-driven user-focussed solution.
I can recommend Simona for her design-scales, commercial awareness and always a focus on business goals, and not less important: a nice working atmosphere!
Simona is very motivated when it comes to webdesign. Everytime when I see a new design, I'm very excited about it. Her designs are not a rip of, of other websites, but everytime she makes unique designs.
Contact
Happy to talk about design, teams, or anything in between.