Wait, have you really been a ballet dancer?
Yes! And a teacher too!
Before becoming a Product Designer, I taught mindfulness meditation on the Tuscan hills, and Italian language in the heart of Moscow.
The drive behind all of it? Curiosity, discipline, and open-mindedness.
The past
When I was 16, I started taking ballet classes to spend more time with a girl I liked. Soon, I became obsessed with it, totally forgetting about my love interest! I worked really hard and graduated from the Ukrainian Ballet Academy of Milan. I danced in many European theaters for a while, before an injury required me to put an end to my career.
After the injury though, I didn’t despair. I studied a lot, got certified as a teacher of Italian language, and found a job in the school of the Italian consulate of Moscow. There, I worked as a teacher and even got promoted to administrator of the courses for adults.
In Moscow I discovered my love for photography and meditation. I learned how to use vintage cameras and got certified as a mindfulness teacher. Feel free to check out my photography gallery and guided meditations.
During the pandemic I fell in love with Product Design, and became a certified UX and Product Designer.
All my previous experiences were pointing me in the direction of Product Design, and made me a skilled, curious, empathetic, structured designer.
Steve Jobs was right; you can connect the dots of your past only when looking back.
My first position as a Product Designer was at the start-up Dinner Circle, where we harnessed the power of AI to help Ukrainian refugees find a safe haven in Berlin, and at the scale-up Babaco Market, the first eco-friendly e-commerce in Italy.
Next, I had the privilege of working at the top-rated cybersecurity platform Sysdig, trusted by organizations like Apple, Booking, and IBM, where my design solutions helped keep businesses’ cloud infrastructures safe from vulnerabilities.
The present
I'm currently the Product Designer at Golee, the platform powering 20,000+ sports clubs across Italy. Every day, I design for the people who keep sport alive: club managers juggling registrations and payments, coaches organizing their teams, and athletes who just want to know when the next practice starts.
My focus is on great design that feels invisible, so that people can spend less time on paperwork and more time on what they love.