Résumé

Updated:

Strategic design executive with 20+ years leading complex, trust‑critical digital products and services across Europe and the Middle East. I align strategy, delivery, and governance so teams can move fast without losing quality.

Download my résumé (PDF) · a@pianabianco.com

Executive profile

• Scope: Strategy, product and service design, operating model, and design governance.
• Domains: Regulated and high‑trust systems (financial services, identity, smart cities, health) where risk, compliance, and adoption matter.
• Delivery style: Turn ambiguity into decisions — and decisions into delivery artefacts: principles, roadmaps, patterns, state models, acceptance criteria, and governance rituals.
• Leadership: Built and scaled teams (founded Fjord Italy; led 30+ designers at Deloitte Digital; led distributed teams at Globant).
• Markets: EU + MENA cross‑border delivery.
• Languages: Fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Italian.

International experience

• Italy: Turin, Milan, Rome
• Spain: Barcelona, Madrid
• United Kingdom: London, Liverpool
• Malta
• Switzerland: Geneva
• Saudi Arabia (KSA): Riyadh
• United Arab Emirates (UAE): Abu Dhabi

Leadership highlights

• Agile transformation & innovation: design sprints, rapid prototyping, and iterative delivery with clear decision ownership.
• Governance at scale: design systems, critique rituals, pattern libraries, and lightweight quality gates that prevent drift under pressure.
• Workshops & executive alignment: 250+ facilitated sessions to converge on priorities, constraints, and measurable outcomes.
• AI/ML decision support: interpretable experiences, safe defaults, and responsible‑use guardrails for adoption in sensitive contexts.

Experience

Strategic & Product Design Director — Globant | Madrid, Spain | 2022–2025

• Led distributed delivery teams across time zones, partnering with product, engineering, and senior stakeholders on direction, sequencing, and quality.
• Delivered end‑to‑end experience work across complex ecosystems, translating constraints into usable patterns and delivery‑ready requirements.
• Established governance mechanisms (reviews, standards, decision artefacts) to keep craft consistent across parallel teams.

Strategic & Experience Design Director — Deloitte Digital | Milan, Italy | 2017–2022

• Directed multidisciplinary teams on large‑scale digital transformation programmes for global clients in regulated and high‑trust domains.
• Managed 30+ designers while maintaining delivery quality through clear operating rhythms, standards, and coaching.
• Partnered with executives to align ambition with feasibility — reducing churn and enabling faster decision‑making.

Service Design Director — Fjord (Accenture Song) | Milan, Italy | 2014–2016

• Founded the Fjord Italy studio and built the early team and delivery model.
• Led service and experience design work across multi‑stakeholder programmes, from concept framing through delivery support.

Earlier roles

• Mobile Experience Product Owner — Mr. Green
• Information Architect — Teachers TV
• Digital Projects Lead — Dorna Sports
• Freelance engagements — AKQA, Huge, Virgin Media, and others

Selected Clients

• Automotive: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Stellantis (Jeep, Alfa Romeo).
• Luxury & fashion: Prada, Bulgari, Brunello Cucinelli, Valentino, Richemont.
• Financial services: Santander, BBVA, Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit, Eurobank, Banco Sabadell, Danske Bank, Mediolanum, ING, Cofidis, MPS, Agos.
• Travel & leisure: Miral, MSC Cruises, Seven, Qiddiya, Costa Crociere, Silversea, Alpitour.
• Healthcare: Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen.
• Retail: Intimissimi, OTB, VF Corporation.

Methods & tools

• Systems thinking: mapping ecosystems, dependencies, and the operational truth behind experiences.
• Scenario planning & competitive analysis: anticipating future states to inform strategy and portfolio direction.
• Service blueprinting & value proposition design: aligning user journeys with business outcomes and delivery feasibility.
• Rapid prototyping: reducing risk by testing critical flows, states, and trust cues early.
• Journey mapping: prioritising improvements across touchpoints, channels, and segments.
• War‑room facilitation: structuring complex decisions with traceability and ownership.

Selected publications & speaking

• Design Thinking for Business (Politecnico di Milano) — debates and industry talks on profiling, empathising, and strategic design.
• ServDes.2018 Conference (Milano, Italy) — Service Design Proof of Concept proceedings contribution.
• Poli.Design — Service Innovation Academy session on service and experience design.
• Il Sole 24 Ore — commentary on service design and delivery readiness.
• Il Design thinking per l’innovazione, fra small e big data
• School of Management, Politecnico di Milano - 4 Kinds of Design Thinking: From Ideating to Making, Engaging, and Criticizing
• Design thinking. A che punto siamo?
• Poli Design. Service Innovation Accademy
• Alessandro Piana Bianco: The Symbolic object of Design Thinking
• Service design in companies - ServDes2018 - Service Design Proof of Concept
• Design Thinking: come conciliare l'innovazione e il capitale umano per una ripartenza efficace
• Observatory Design Thinking for Business - Which Kind of Design Thinking is right for you?

More context

• Alessandro Piana Bianco on Google Scholar
• my github repositories
• Chapter contribution (2005): “Cacciatori e prede. Il caso Manhunt” in Gli strumenti del videogiocare (Costa & Nolan).
• Merry Lingua Frank - A semi-serious (un)controlled vocabulary of Experience Design. And related obsenities.
• Designing Experience Design - A tangential take on experience design principles
• Alessandro Piana Bianco on IMDB

ORCID: 0009-0007-2102-5054

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For a full timeline, roles, and certifications, refer to the downloadable PDF résumé.