Team leadership: Grew and managed diverse product and marketing design teams from 1 to 35 talented designers and copywriters Culture and process: In partnership with analytics team, drove adoption of experimentation and experimentation culture. Trained product and design teams in product discovery and validation. Designed experimentation metrics that reflect business needs and user behaviour. Product and design strategy: Driving virality, accounts growth, B2C to B2B pivot and business growth. Strategy on keeping competitive advantage with the rise of AI products and leveraging LLM's capabilities in DeepL’s products. User Research: Established a foundation for user research and an insight-driven culture. Created jobs-to-be- done classifications based on a variety of qualitative and quantitative sources to help teams understand the needs of millions of users and drive user-centric decision-making. Hands-on work: Product design across the Deepl ecosystem including apps. Launch of Chrome extension and DeepL Write. Data analysis and user research to inform product strategy and decisions.
Elena Borisova
Product design | AI products touched by millions | Ex. Booking.com, DeepL
Bio
I help product teams unlock growth by turning fuzzy ideas and feature overload into clear, focused product experiences that convert, retain, and scale. - 15+ years of experience building successful products and teams. - I work across product, design, research, and go-to-market to help teams stop wasting time on features that don’t matter and build what does - I've built products used and loved by millions of users and know what works and what doesn't My superpower is combining my background in mathematics, psychology and design to find and validate the next big product investment. Talk to me if: - You built a product or feature, but can't get traction - Are launching AI features and want to avoid common product traps - Want sharper product decisions that drive growth - Need help building your product team from scratch - Want to work more efficiently as a product manager using AI tools
Expertise
Artificial intelligence
In my latest role at Deepl (an AI communication startup with over 20k businesses and 1 billion users globally) I got first-hand experience in building b2b AI product
Building a team
In my previous role as Design Director at Deepl, I built a 35-person design team of talented product and marketing designers and copywriters from scratch.
Conversion rate optimisation
From booking.com index page with millions of visitors a day to complex b2b products, my experience covers a broad range of a/b testing. I use my background in mathematics to figure our complex experimentation set up that goes beyond simple conversion optimisation
Design / UX
I have 15+ years of experience building and improving products that drive business outcomes, from conversion optimisation at Booking.com to launching new products from scratch at DeepL. My designs were touched by millions of users that allowed me learn what actually works on practice.
Growth marketing
At DeepL I was part of multiple teams responsible for growth: main product growth in new markets that followed new language releases and a growth team for apps and extensions
Leadership
As a Design Director at Deepl, I was responsible for building a design team, setting up product culture and creatinbg product design strategy. The example strategic areas were: Driving virality, accounts growth, B2C to B2B pivot and business growth. Strategy on keeping competitive advantage with the rise of AI products and leveraging LLM's capabilities in DeepL’s products.
User research
I combine qualitateive and quantitave insights to make business decisions on time. How to decide what to build next without betting blindly but also without spending 6 months on a giant user research project?
Toolkit
Figma
9 years of experienceI've been using Figma daily since 2018 as my go-to tool for both thinking and designing. It's central to how I approach product design and collaboration, though I prefer not to give advice on it specifically.
Industries
A/B Testing
At DeepL: In partnership with analytics team, I drove adoption of experimentation and experimentation culture. From simple conversion optimisation to defining metrics and experimentation within B2B SaaS context. At Booking.com: ran 600+ experiments with wide range of contexts. From million traffic on booking.com index page to low traffic "captive" users on the extranet.
Sustainability
Currently consulting with the World Business Council for Sustainable development (wbcsd.org) helping them with digital strengthening web presence and digital offering.
Product Design
I've built, launched and improved products touched by millions of users during my time at DeeepL and Booking. The latest launches include Deepl chrome extension and DeepL Write (AI writing assistant)
Product Research
During my time at DeepL I established a foundation for user research and an insight-driven culture. Created jobs-to-be- done classifications based on multiple qualitative and quantitative sources to help teams understand the needs of millions of users and drive user-centric decision-making.
Travel
During 4 years at Booking.com I worked with both traveller- and accomodation-facing products. I led redesign of booking.com index page and a sign up process for homes and apartments to grow apartment rental part of the business
Experience
- Artificial IntelligenceTranslation ServiceSaaS
Launching new products, building design team, developing user-centric data-dricven product culture
Artificial IntelligenceTranslation ServiceSaaSDuring my time in Booking I’ve been working both on B2C and B2B projects: from optimising high traffic landing pages and redesigning/preparing for scaling the homepage to simplifying and improving partner sign up process. * Identifying users pain points and business opportunities via research (user research, user feedback, surveys) and quantitative data, and prioritising opportunities based on impact * Working on solutions, both on my own and organising team brainstorms to come up with UX strategy or smaller improvements. * Splitting design vision into smaller and measurable steps * Coordinating efforts across multiple teams * Validating solutions and features via A/B testing and user testing * Analysing data to interpret results and come up with iteration and next steps * Mentoring and guiding designers, providing feedback and sharing knowledge, constructively challenging others * Working with other teams on improving overall product quality * Improving internal processes
My best written content
- https://elena-borisova.medium.com/how-to-combine-qualitative-and-quantitative-insights-for-better-design-decisions-ff29f32d7dda
- https://medium.com/swlh/hiring-your-first-product-designer-a-no-nonsense-guide-to-product-design-skills-a55a1a210c02
- https://elena-borisova.medium.com/how-to-make-complex-decisions-in-product-and-dev-teams-2a9fb3dcd169
- https://uxdesign.cc/product-decision-making-driven-by-opinion-vs-driven-by-data-97e57794a938
- https://elena-borisova.medium.com/experimentation-guide-for-product-designers-and-managers-da7a1e938e09