Jane.Vita
I am a CX and Design Leader with over 20 years of experience in customer experience strategy, design management, and sustainable innovation across global markets. I have a proven record of leading multidisciplinary teams, scaling design operations, managing service portfolios, and delivering impactful solutions. My expertise includes service design, UX, digital transformation, and systems thinking, with a focus on responsible and regenerative practices. I excel at creating end-to-end customer journeys that are measurable, driving operational excellence and sustainable, data-driven business outcomes. My background encompasses consulting, research, and teaching, with leadership roles in international design communities.
Brazilian
roots
I'm originally from Curitiba in Brazil, where I graduated in Visual Design (2000) and completed a Master's in Web Design (2003). This city was essential to my professional development and design practice.
My career started early, in 1997, as a marketing assistant in an eco-tourism agency. Later, at the University, I participated in multiple training programs, including a product management program at Pro-ação comunitária and a design program at Vivat Florest, giving me a strong foundation in Eco-design and Sustainability.
During the early 2000s, opportunities in the Internet and HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) grew, and my focus shifted to Interaction and Visual Design. I started my career in Digital, using my skills to design mobile apps, websites, digital marketing campaigns, and asset design.
Between 2001 and 2003, I also pursued entrepreneurship, and, together with two other colleagues, we offered digital services through an agency called Nextmedia.
In Brazil, between 2004-2008 and 2010-2011, I worked at Positivo Informática (Dynamic Content Coordinator), Lojas Renner (Web Analyst), AcessoZero (Lead Interaction Designer), Agência Casa (JWT) (Lead Interaction Designer - Contractor), and Learnway (Lead Interaction Designer). As a design and digital strategist, I worked with clients such as Volvo, Renault, Bematech, Porto Seguro, Boticário, Banco do Brasil, Gol Linhas Aéreas, and many others. I also conducted lectures at FaberLudens, Ensitech, Aldeia, and a few other institutions.
International career
I lived abroad for the first time in Helsinki between 2009 and 2010 and worked as an Interaction and Visual Designer at Fjord Helsinki. During that time, I collaborated with teams from brands such as Skype, NSN, Nokia, BBC, TVe, and Ericsson.
After spending another two years in Brazil, 2010-2011, I returned to Helsinki with my family. Between 2012 and 2017, I advanced my career as a Digital Channels Strategist and Service Designer consultant at Ixonos, Fjord/Accenture Song, Futurice, and Digitalist (Ixonos). Some of the brands I worked with during that time were Marcopolo, Nokian Tyres, Honka, Iittala, Stockmann, Viking Line, Safmarine, OP, Rovio, Fira, YIT, Fennia, Fortum, Swarovski, ABB, and BMW.
In 2018, I moved to Canada, Vancouver, BC. During almost three years, I had the opportunity to drive and expand the Digitalist offering in NA. As Design Manager, I established a team of 20 design consultants with a range of competencies (13 in Vancouver, BC, and 7 in San Francisco, US). Our accounts included Finning, Microsoft, Nokia, Apple, Google, and Pacific Blue Cross.
During the COVID crisis, my family and I moved back to Helsinki, and we have been here since May 2020. Still working for Digitalist as a Design Director, I led work for ILOQ, Fortum, Posti, and Stora Enso.
VTT was my destination from 2021 to 2022, and along with some brilliant minds, I had the opportunity to work as Design Lead for multinational projects with clients such as Ansell and in ecosystem strategies (multi-brands) to uptake new technologies, sponsored by ESA (European Space Agency), HEU (Horizon Europe), and Business Finland.
Between 2021 and 2023, I worked remotely as a Design Lead contractor for Zurich Group Insurance. Learning about big corporations and the enterprise world, supporting CX transformation projects, and leading and implementing the Sustainable Options program.
Nowadays, I am just handing over my work as Lead Service Designer at Metso. For a little more than 1,5 years, I have been more engaged than ever with multidisciplinary teams in diverse business units worldwide. Focusing on designing and optimizing offerings and innovating with customers and operational excellence at he heart.
Continues
learning
As I got more involved with digital Design, I realized its evolving nature and how we approach it is continuously transformative. In 2012, my motivation to deepen my understanding of Service Design, Business Innovation, and Co-creation principles drove me to a Master’s program at Laurea University (Finland), focusing on Service Innovation and Design. I also started lecturing about Service Design in a Digital Context a few years later.
Over the years, I have been very involved with design communities and associations, such as the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and the Service Design Network. I am always interested in exploring new and established tools, approaches, and techniques, but I am especially interested in exchanging knowledge with others about Design. My most recent initiative contribution is going to the Joint Frontiers community.
I also founded the first Brazilian design community on Orkut (2001), with a bit more than 10,000 members, and helped establish IxDA chapters in Curitiba and Recife, and later in Helsinki. I was part of the organization of the Interaction South America 2013 (Recife, BR), Interaction 16 (Helsinki, FI) conferences, and Service Design Global Conference 24 (Helsinki, FI), as well as many other, more minor but still very significant events. I also regularly share my work in publications, workshops, and seminars. You can see more here.
Contact Me via:
Metso - Espoo, Finland
Lead Service Design (June 2022 - present)
Espoo, Finland
My role includes: Supporting stakeholders and product teams by advocating customer-centricity for digital services and processes. Gather insights to identify digital development needs and opportunities, focusing on end-user and customer challenges, pain points, and business development perspectives. Lead collaborative sessions to generate ideas, solve problems, and co-design feasible, viable, desirable, and sustainable solutions. Promote design and systems-thinking approaches to creating sustainable services. Ensure technical enablers yield maximum value for customers and internal stakeholders. Drive customer and stakeholder validation to design service, process, and business models. Collaborate with designers to develop and lead well-functioning practices and generate awareness in line with company values.
Zurich Group Insurances - Remote, Spain
Design Lead (Jan 2021 - Sep 2022)
At Zurich, I help implement the CX Strategy. My primary focus is on supporting business units to make the most of CX capabilities, such as tailoring CX standards and driving innovation through customer journeys. I also lead the Sustainable Options project, which aims to develop tools and guidelines to map, analyze, ideate, evaluate, implement, and measure the performance of solutions that offer customers sustainable choices and help them adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.
VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland
Design Lead (Jan 2021 - Sep 2022)
As Design Lead, I was directly responsible for the quality, creativity, and delivery of projects. I peer design with other design colleagues and nurture holistic innovation and systemic thinking at VTT’s research work and organization.
Some of the work done at VTT:
Forest Carbon Platform (FCP) Website
(FCP) Co-creation process
Discovery and holistic requirements
Digitalist Group
Design Director NA Design Director
(2018-2020 / Vancouver, BC)
Lead Service Designer
(2016-2017 / Helsinki)
In November 2016, I joined Digitalist Group as Lead Service Design; my role was to act as an expert consultant, helping customers to discover their digital future. These projects vary from extensive discovery to design implementation sprints. Later in January 2018, I joined our Vancouver studio, where I managed a local design team of 13 designers and facilitated internal and external dialogue around design practice in North America. With the challenges brought by the Pandemic came the termination of my expat contract and my early return to Helsinki; now I'm gladly working as Design Director at our studio in beautiful Helsinki.
“I was very lucky to work under Jane and benefited greatly from her depth of design knowledge and her optimistic spirit. She was able to lead our team through difficult challenges with kindness and empathy while inspiring us to deliver our best work. As a manager, she sought to give me, others on my team, opportunities for personal growth such as getting journal articles published or stretching skills in facilitation at the BMW summer camp. Her guidance was invaluable in helping navigate client organizations and crafting holistic design strategy. She is able to jump in at varying levels of detail for our projects to offer guidance or input. I know the next team she leads will benefit greatly from her experience, knowledge and sense of humor.”
SENIOR SERVICE CREATOR
FUTURICE (Aug 2014 – Nov 2016)
At Futurice, I worked closely with the team to strategically understand client and consumer needs and ensure alignment of these insights throughout the service design process, shaping research strategies and concepts to help connect businesses to their users and economic goals.
“I had a pleasure to work with Jane in a project where we developed a new way of building apartment buildings together with end users. Jane is full of different set of tools to find out what our customers really needed and draw a great customer journey map, which helped us remarkably to build a successful product. In a nutshell Jane brought our concept alive and helped us succeed in our goal. I would gladly work with Jane in future and I sincerely recommend her to a service design project.”
Senior Interaction and Visual Designer
Fjord, Helsinki (May 2008 – Dec 2009, May 2014 - Jul 2014
This was my second time at Fjord. There, I worked as an Interaction Designer. I helped create a web concept for a large company, Safmarine, which operates in the transportation segment.
“We have worked with Jane at the same team on a number of different projects. Jane is a very pleasant team member, knowledgeable and experienced in the sphere of her competence - interaction design. Jane is also a thorough and creative visual designer, which was always helpful in our work. Jane was always attentive during the meetings and shared her concerns openly in a timely manner.
Our mutual projects with Jane were all successful.”
“I learned to use my expertise to define better the problem considering sources that were not only coming from my past work life or the assigned team. I learned to transform assumptions to a hypothesis. The “great design” comes with the understanding of the client capability and experts insights, customers wants and needs and the design trend magic. All this together is a powerful tool for the business.”
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Follow my work
The best way to learn something is to interact with other people. Conversations usually bring a lot of interesting aspects to the topic that you may not have considered when you were studying it alone. Different opinions and perspectives make your findings more valuable. That is why I contribute and participate in various communities.
Medium
A few months ago, I started transferring all my articles to Medium and also contributing as writer to one of the most prestigious design community there, the UxDesign.cc. ( https://uxdesign.cc/ ) and in Portuguese ( https://brasil.uxdesign.cc/ )
Slideshare
My first contribution to the SlideShare Design community was in 2010. Since then, I've added several public presentations to my profile. Two of them were featured and had a broader audience; the topics were Immersive Experiences and Healthcare's Digital Future. More than 20 presentations to check out!
Service Sandbox
The Service Sandbox initiative began with the goal of creating a co-creation tool that helps designers and other professionals develop better, more meaningful services in physical spaces. Since we can’t do it alone, we decided to share the knowledge and improve the methodology together with the community. The first and second versions are online to download!