Professional Experience

Discovery Manager – Freelance BoBMarvan.com

02/2025 — Present

Independent design and discovery consultant working with organisations on complex product, service and transformation challenges. I define discovery approaches, facilitate stakeholder alignment and translate ambiguity into decision-ready product and service directions.

• ČSOB Group — Designed and facilitated strategic workshops within a large-scale Business and IT Architecture Transformation initiative. Co-created future concepts for digital channels and the client service model, approved by the Board as the strategic direction for 2030–2035.
• Česká spořitelna — Leading discovery and service design for the People & Culture Landscape initiative, focused on consolidating and redesigning core HR processes across the organisation.
• Proof & Reason Agency — Providing long-term consulting on the strategic redesign of a client ordering portal, with a focus on user needs, product direction and design process quality.
• Futured — Delivered hands-on Design Discovery training for the full design team, strengthening shared discovery capabilities and improving ways of working.

Group Design Process Leader – Direct Group

12/2023 — 11/2024

Led design process improvement and strategic discovery activities across the group, improving collaboration, product direction and design-led decision-making.

• Diagnosed internal design and innovation processes and proposed improvements to team workflows and collaboration.
• Led strategic product discovery for Fidoo FX, driving a pivot from simple expense reporting and FX marketplace towards a broader financial dashboard for companies.
• Redesigned service processes for non-customers involved in car accidents, improving the handling of an important edge-case customer journey.
• Led the adoption of Miro as a shared collaboration tool across the group.

Discovery Manager – Gen Digital / Avast Software

02/2021 — 11/2023

Founded and led a Discovery team within Avast's design organisation, improving the quality of early product decisions and strengthening collaboration between design, product and engineering.

• Managed and mentored a team of 5 designers focused on product discovery and upstream product thinking.
• Embedded discovery practices into the innovation process, enabling teams to validate opportunities before committing to delivery.
• Led discovery for Avast Secure Browser's Side Panel, moving the product from assumptions to a validated MVP through research, prioritisation and testing. The feature was expected to reach 4–6% interaction and later achieved roughly 40% user interaction after launch.
• Contributed to improving the UX of Avast One, supporting the product's successful launch.

Design Thinking Lead, Associate Director – MSD IT Global Innovation Center

03/2019 — 01/2021

Led discovery and design thinking activities in a global enterprise environment, supporting strategic innovation initiatives and building stronger collaborative practices.

• Built and led a 6-person Discovery team within the Experience Design department, mentoring designers and shaping a stronger discovery practice.
• Supported enterprise adoption of Mural, enabling distributed teams to collaborate effectively during the COVID-19 period.
• For the PharmaLedger consortium, prepared the discovery methodology, led the delivery team and facilitated workshops that translated a complex multi-stakeholder challenge into a pilot-ready direction for digital drug leaflets / electronic product information.

Senior UX Designer – MSD IT Global Innovation Center

12/2016 — 02/2019

Worked across strategic project phases, from problem framing and discovery to concept development, prototyping and delivery handover.

• Prepared and facilitated discovery workshops with business and technology stakeholders.
• Created journey maps, service concepts, prototypes and UX deliverables for complex internal and external digital services.
• Translated user needs and strategic intent into actionable design direction for product and delivery teams.

User Experience Designer – AVG Technologies

11/2013 — 11/2016

Designed product, e-commerce and support experiences during AVG's transition towards SaaS-based subscriptions.

• Contributed to the transition to SaaS-based subscriptions by designing new product pages and e-commerce flows.
• Redesigned the AVG Support Centre, improving its NPS score to 70.
• Collaborated with product, content and development teams to improve user journeys across AVG's digital touchpoints.

Design Team Lead – Seznam.cz, a.s.

09/2011 — 10/2013

Led a multidisciplinary design team and oversaw major redesigns of high-traffic Czech digital products.

• Led a team of 12 UX designers, researchers and copywriters, supporting their growth while overseeing redesigns including Mapy.cz, Sauto.cz and Sport.cz.
• Collaborated with product and development teams on complex redesigns and service improvements across multiple digital products.
• Led a project to make Mapy.cz accessible to blind users through haptic maps.

Conceptual Designer – Seznam.cz, a.s.

01/2009 — 08/2011

Focused on improving the usability, accessibility and performance of Seznam.cz digital services.

• Introduced usability testing practices across Seznam.cz and conducted early eye-tracking research.
• Optimised the Sklik campaign interface, improving performance by 20%.
• Worked on information architecture, interaction design and accessibility improvements across multiple services.

Webmaster – Seznam.cz, a.s.

09/2003 — 12/2008

Developed and maintained front-end components for Seznam.cz services, with a strong focus on usability and accessibility.

• Developed front-end components for Seznam.cz services using Teng, HTML and CSS.
• Implemented accessibility standards to improve usability for disabled visitors.
• Facilitated cross-portal collaboration on web accessibility in the Czech market.

Selected Community & Leadership Projects

Founder – Humans of UX

2016 — Present

Founded Humans of UX, the largest census of UX professionals in the Czech and Slovak Republics, combining quantitative and qualitative research to bring clarity to the local UX market. See the results of Humans of UX from 2021.

Exhibition Curator – Digital Design: A Look Behind the Pixels

2015 — 2017

Founded and coordinated an educational exhibition #zapixely on digital design that attracted 3,000+ visitors, leading a team of 30+ volunteers and experts. See zapixely.cz.

Chief Coordinator – Prague Model of UN

2003 — 2005

Led the 9th and 10th editions of the Prague Model of UN, managing around 40 volunteers and delivering a student conference for 350 participants.

Certifications and Courses

• Nielsen Norman Group UX Certification: UX Management (ID: 1024652)
• Business Process Design for Strategic Management
• Master of AI Creativity
• Additional training in UX, accessibility, copywriting, management and presentation skills.

Tools & Languages

Tools: Miro, Mural, Figma, FigJam, Axure RP, Adobe Photoshop, HTML, CSS; practical use of ChatGPT, Gemini and Miro Sidekick for research synthesis, ideation and discovery workflow support.

Languages: Czech — Native; English — Full professional working proficiency.