My name is Elena, I am a multi-disciplinary design leader with nearly two decades of experience in design and strategy. Throughout the course of my career, I’ve led creative direction for web, desktop, and mobile apps, e-commerce, print, and branding projects. I've been fortunate enough to work for start-ups, big and small agencies, and in-house product teams at Fortune 500 companies.
My interest in video games brought me to be the head designer of the Curse Voice app, which was acquired by Amazon and became the Twitch Desktop App. I lead design vision across the entire product lifecycle and multiple feature launches. In true start-up nature, I was involved in all stages and areas of this product: from the initial UX workshop with the stakeholders to user flows, design execution, and later all marketing and promotion initiatives.
Currently I am the Director of Product Design at PlayVS, the leading esports platform for high schools and the only place in the United States and Canada where esports qualifies as varsity sports. Through our partnerships with leading game developers, PlayVS provides the most robust online platform that enables schools to easily build and manage teams, check schedules, and track match stats, all with real-time support.
I like to think of my work as “digital wayfinding” where we as product teams get our users from point A to point B, walking in their shoes, using data as a decision-making driver, and pushing the limits on creativity, and emotional impact and quality of design. Coming from a visual design background, I believe in empowering designers and making sure that my team is strong and healthy – including capabilities, happiness, resilience, and career development.
I thrive at wearing multiple hats: driving strategic execution of design or being hands-on and jumping into Figma when needed. From my agency days, I bring an ability to blend different perspectives and build multidisciplinary teams to create powerful products.
Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine I moved to the U.S after getting my Master's in Graphic Design from Florence Design Academy in Italy. Currently, I live in sunny Orange County with my partner and french bulldog Marzipan.
I've done some work for:
My Resume
