Design leadership at Dostavista and Borzo
At Dostavista, I built the design function from the ground up: grew the team to 10 people, set up collaboration with product, engineering, and marketing, created a design system, and launched UX research. At Borzo, I was responsible for the rebranding.
- Audience
- 1.5 mln MAU
- Geography
- 8 countries
- Team
- 10 designers
Context
When I joined Dostavista, design was not working as a system: there were several disconnected libraries, no shared component system in engineering, and a constant stream of urgent tasks.
I needed to build the design function: the team, the processes with product and engineering, and a shared quality standard. I worked across two product areas – customer and courier – and reported directly to the VP of Product.
Team and processes
Over three years, the team grew to 10 people. I split it into two areas – product design and communications design – and defined who was responsible for what.
I handled hiring myself, from CV screening to final interviews and onboarding. I helped designers grow and gradually handed over responsibility for separate areas.
I built the task workflow: planning and prioritization, estimation, design review, product review, handoff to engineering, and QA in the test build.
Product changes
Web and app flows were structured differently. I gradually brought them to a shared logic and visual language.
At first, I designed most of the customer product myself. As the team grew, I moved into leadership: defined where product design was heading, ensured the quality of decisions, and got involved in complex flows.
Changes to the customer interfaces helped increase conversion to first order from 23% to 28%.
Research
I launched fast unmoderated UX research using Figma, Maze, and Intercom to test solutions with users before development.
I built a repeatable process and an internal guide, then trained designers and product managers. Research became part of the teams’ regular workflow instead of remaining a one‑off experiment.
I ran the fastest test in one hour, and the full cycle – preparation, launch, and analysis of results – took two days. The test included 106 participants.
Design system
Instead of the previous disconnected libraries, I created a two‑level design system for product and marketing communications.
The first level defined the visual foundation: color, typography, grid, icons, and the shape of UI elements. The second level covered applied systems for web, mobile apps, and marketing. Shared principles allowed each system to evolve independently while keeping one visual language.
Together with engineering, we gradually turned shared elements into components in code, so the system worked not only in Figma but also in the product. After the companies split, Dostavista remained on this design system.
Borzo rebranding
The rebranding started before the companies split: local urgent delivery services in eight countries had to be united under one brand. After the companies split in 2023, I continued leading design at Borzo.
I prepared a shared design system for product, marketing, and engineering. It took several months: by launch, the design team together with engineering had already built the foundation.
The Borzo brand operated in eight out of ten countries; Russia and Turkey kept their local brands. To avoid rebuilding interfaces and communications manually for every market, we used a system of color skins.
Brand guidelines and product update
Later, Borzo’s visual language no longer matched the way the product and the brand had evolved. I updated the brand guidelines with the design team. We did not create a new style from scratch; we evolved what already worked.
We brought the new visual language into the product gradually: rebuilt the home page and part of the customer app flows. We changed the interface in a way that did not make users lose familiar scenarios.
